AI Transformation Group Manager

Citigroup Inc.; Jersey City (NJ); On-site; USD 160,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Citigroup Inc. is searching for an AI Transformation Group Manager to lead the transformation of technology operations, focusing on building and operating reference data capabilities. You will be managing around 70 engineers, leading them in the modernization of software development lifecycles with an AI-first mindset. This leadership role not only demands strong technical skills but also requires the ability to influence and communicate strategies to executives.

This position involves driving AI integration in engineering processes and ensuring that the organization adapts to evolving technological needs while maintaining high operational standards.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in technology with leadership in software engineering.
• Experience in leading AI transformations across software development.
• Deep understanding of applied AI, including LLMs and data products.

Responsibilities

• Set the AI transformation strategy and roadmap.
• Lead and develop an organization of around 70 technologists.
• Drive AI-augmented engineering and embed AI tools in workflows.

Skills

Leadership

AI First Transformation

Software Engineering

Data Engineering

Scala

Python

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master’s preferred

Tools

Scala

Python

CI/CD

Data Platforms

Job description

The AI Transformation Group Manager is a senior management-level position responsible for leading and transforming the technology organization that builds and operates Master and Reference Data capabilities across Citi's Institutional Client Group. Leading an organization of approximately 70 engineers, engineering managers, and delivery leads, this role owns the end-to-end modernization of how the group designs, builds, tests, ships, and operates software — re-architecting the software development lifecycle around applied artificial intelligence. The overall objective of this role is to make the organization measurably AI-first in its mindset, delivery methods, and work products, while raising the quality, timeliness, and resilience of the legal-entity, counterparty, instrument, and security reference data on which the firm's trading, risk, and client franchises depend.

Responsibilities

• Set and own the AI transformation strategy and multi-year roadmap for the Master and Reference Data organization, translating frontier AI capabilities into prioritized, measurable engineering and business outcomes across the full software development lifecycle — from requirements and design through coding, testing, release, and production operations.
• Lead, motivate, and develop an organization of approximately 70 technologists, including hands‑on engineering managers and senior individual contributors; own performance evaluation and management, talent selection, capability building, compensation, succession, and resource planning; and reshape the operating model to sustain an AI-first way of working.
• Drive the organization’s transition to AI-augmented engineering — embedding AI coding assistants, agentic development workflows, and automated test and review generation into daily delivery; redesigning workflows and quality gates so that accelerated upstream output does not create downstream bottlenecks; and establishing the standards, guardrails, and evaluation criteria that let teams move quickly and safely.
• Direct the design, build, and operation of Master and Reference Data platforms and services — golden-record mastering, entity resolution and disambiguation, hierarchies and cross-referencing, data-quality remediation, lineage, and distribution — primarily on a Scala-based engineering stack (e.g., Scala and Akka for large-scale data processing), adopting Python and other languages where they are the right tool for the problem.
• Lead the application of AI to the data domain itself: design and oversee solutions that consume large language models and AI services (via APIs and internal AI platforms) for entity matching, anomaly and break detection, classification and enrichment, natural-language data discovery and stewardship, and retrieval-augmented access to data catalogs and documentation — with rigorous evaluation for accuracy, hallucination, lineage, and domain-constraint validation.
• Own delivery accountability end to end: run a high-performing engineering pipeline to demanding code, test, and operational standards, and instrument the organization with metrics for delivery velocity, quality, reliability, AI adoption, and realized business value (ROI), continuously refining the approach against those outcomes.
• Champion AI fluency across the organization as a practice pusher — establishing internal standards, reusable frameworks, reference architectures, and best practices; advising teams on tooling and technique selection; and building the upskilling paths that turn engineers into effective orchestrators, reviewers, and validators of AI-generated work.
• Partner with product, architecture, data governance, and consuming business and technology teams across the Institutional Client Group to align the AI-first roadmap with enterprise architecture and controls and with the needs of downstream consumers, delivering reference data as scalable, secure, well-governed services.
• Resolve complex, ambiguous problems whose impact extends beyond the immediate organization, applying deep technical judgment and drawing on a diverse range of internal and external sources to make sound build/buy/partner and architecture decisions.
• Persuade and influence senior stakeholders, vendors, and platform partners through clear communication, diplomacy, and negotiation, translating technical strategy into outcomes that non-technical executives can act on.
• Appropriately assess risk when business decisions are made, demonstrating particular consideration for the firm’s reputation and safeguarding Citigroup, its clients and assets, by driving compliance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, adhering to Policy, applying sound ethical judgment regarding personal behavior, conduct and business practices, and escalating, managing and reporting control issues with transparency, as well as effectively supervising the activity of others and creating accountability with those who fail to maintain these standards.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in technology, including substantial experience leading software engineering organizations and other people-leaders, with a track record of delivering complex platforms at scale.
• Demonstrated experience leading an AI-first or AI-enablement transformation of an engineering organization — embedding generative and agentic AI across the software development lifecycle and producing measurable gains in velocity, quality, and cost.
• Strong, current command of applied AI for building software and data products: LLMs and frontier-model APIs, retrieval-augmented generation, embeddings and vector search, agent and tool-use patterns, prompt and context engineering, and LLM evaluation and observability (emphasis on consuming and integrating AI services, rather than model pretraining or research).
• Deep data engineering background, ideally in master, reference, or enterprise data domains, with hands‑on credibility in a Scala-based stack (Scala, Spark) and fluency in Python; comfortable steering polyglot teams to the right language for each problem.
• Experience designing, operating, and scaling distributed data platforms and services — batch and streaming processing, large-scale storage, data quality, and lineage — with strong non-functional qualities including reliability, scalability, security, and observability.
• Proven ability to run an effective engineering development pipeline with high code and design standards, rigorous review, test automation, CI/CD, and operational excellence.
• Experience in financial services or a similarly large, complex, regulated, and global environment preferred; familiarity with reference and market data (legal entities, counterparties, instruments, securities, classifications, and hierarchies) is a strong advantage.
• Track record of attracting, building, and retaining high-performing engineering talent and developing other leaders.
• Proven ability to define metrics, analytical tools, and benchmarks and to use them to drive decisions and demonstrate return on investment.
• Consistently clear and concise written and verbal communication, including the ability to convey technical concepts and AI strategy to non-technical and executive audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to operate across both strategy and hands-on execution in a high-pressure matrix environment, taking ownership under tight deadlines and shifting requirements.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree/University degree or equivalent experience
• Master’s degree preferred

Citi is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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