Associate Director, Applied AI

Humana Inc; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 207,000 - 284,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

401(k) retirement savings plan

Paid time off

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Career growth opportunities

Job summary

Humana Inc. seeks an Associate Director of Applied AI to lead teams building production-ready enterprise AI solutions across healthcare.

You will guide generative AI initiatives, model deployment, and MLOps in a regulated environment while aligning technical strategy with business goals. You will partner with product, data science, engineering, security, and business teams to deliver measurable outcomes for members, patients, and associates, staying current with AI trends and responsible

Qualifications

• 10+ years in AI/ML product development, engineering, data science, or related tech work with leadership responsibility.
• Experience leading design, development, and delivery of enterprise AI/ML products or platforms.
• Experience delivering generative AI or intelligent agent solutions in production.
• Strong knowledge of ML fundamentals, model deployment, evaluation, and MLOps practices.
• Hands-on with Python and modern ML frameworks.
• Experience mentoring engineers, data scientists, or other technical professionals.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly across business and technical teams.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor teams developing production-ready AI solutions.
• Define and execute the roadmap for applied AI initiatives.
• Guide evaluation and adoption of ML, generative AI, LLMs, multimodal models, and intelligent agents.
• Oversee scalable APIs, data pipelines, retrieval-augmented generation, and agent orchestration.
• Partner with product, data science, engineering, security, and business teams to translate requirements into reliable solutions.
• Establish standards for AI evaluation, observability, performance, security, privacy, maintainability, and operational excellence.
• Promote responsible AI practices and compliance with healthcare, data privacy, and security requirements.
• Stay current with AI technology and recommend practical opportunities aligned with Humana’s mission and business goals.

Skills

AI/ML product development

Enterprise AI delivery

Generative AI

MLOps

Python

Team leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related field

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

scikit-learn

Hugging Face Transformers

LangChain

LlamaIndex

FastAPI

Flask

Django

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Become a part of our caring community Help shape practical, responsible AI solutions that improve healthcare experiences and outcomes. Humana’s Enterprise AI organization develops safe, scalable AI solutions across our Insurance and CenterWell businesses. We bring together product managers, data scientists, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders to apply emerging technology to meaningful healthcare challenges. As Associate Director of Applied AI, you will lead teams that design, build, and deploy enterprise AI solutions, with a focus on generative AI and intelligent agents. You will connect technical strategy to business needs, guide responsible delivery in a regulated environment, and help teams turn promising ideas into measurable outcomes for members, patients, and associates.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor teams developing production-ready AI solutions that improve healthcare delivery, member experiences, and business operations.
• Help define and execute the roadmap for applied AI initiatives in alignment with enterprise priorities and business needs.
• Guide the evaluation and adoption of machine learning, generative AI, large language models, multimodal models, and intelligent agent technologies.
• Oversee scalable APIs, frameworks, data pipelines, retrieval-augmented generation solutions, and agent orchestration capabilities.
• Partner with product, data science, engineering, architecture, security, and business teams to translate requirements into reliable solutions.
• Establish standards for AI evaluation, observability, performance, security, privacy, maintainability, and operational excellence.
• Promote responsible AI practices and compliance with applicable healthcare, data privacy, and security requirements.
• Stay current with AI technology and recommend practical opportunities that support Humana’s mission and business goals.

Required Qualifications

• 10 or more years of experience in AI/ML product development, engineering, data science, or related technology work, including leadership responsibility.
• Experience leading the design, development, and delivery of enterprise AI/ML products or platforms.
• Experience delivering generative AI or intelligent agent solutions in a production environment.
• Strong knowledge of machine learning fundamentals, model deployment, evaluation, and MLOps practices.
• Hands-on proficiency with Python and experience using modern machine learning frameworks.
• Experience leading or mentoring engineers, data scientists, or other technical professionals.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly and partner effectively across business and technical teams.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience applying AI in healthcare or another highly regulated industry.
• Experience with retrieval-augmented generation, agent orchestration, multi-agent systems, or multimodal AI.
• Experience with frameworks or libraries such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn, Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain, or LlamaIndex.
• Experience building scalable APIs with tools such as FastAPI, Flask, or Django.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, cloud platforms, and enterprise data pipelines.
• Advanced degree in a relevant technical or quantitative field.

Work Style

Hybrid Work Style: This role follows a hybrid work model and requires in-office collaboration three days per week. Candidates must be located within commuting distance of one of Humana’s approved hub locations: New York City, NY Louisville, KY Dallas, TX.

Additional Information

#enterpriseAI

Scheduled Weekly Hours: 40

Pay Range: The compensation range below reflects a good faith estimate of startingbase pay for full time (40 hours per week) employment at the time of posting. The pay range may be higher or lower based on geographic location and individualpay will vary based on demonstrated job-related skills, knowledge, experience, education, certifications, etc.

$206,600 - $284,300 per year. This job is eligible for a bonus incentive plan. This incentive opportunity is based upon company and/or individual performance.

Benefits

• Medical, dental and vision benefits
• 401(k) retirement savings plan
• Time off (including paid time off, company and personal holidays, paid parental and caregiver leave)
• Short-term and long-term disability
• Life insurance
• Many other opportunities

Associate benefits are designed to encourage personal wellness and smart healthcare decisions for you and your family while also knowing your life extends outside of work. Among our benefits, Humana provides medical, dental and vision benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan, time off (including paid time off, company and personal holidays, paid parental and caregiver leave), short-term and long-term disability, life insurance and many other opportunities.

About Us

Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) is a leading U.S. healthcare company. Through our Humana insurance services and our CenterWell healthcare services, we make it easier for the millions of people we serve to achieve their best health – delivering the care and service they need, when they need it. These efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare and Medicaid, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large. Learn more about what we offer at Humana.com and at CenterWell.com.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is the policy of Humana not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, disability or protected veteran status. It is also the policy of Humana to take affirmative action, in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and VEVRAA, to employ and to advance in employment individuals with disability or protected veteran status, and to base all employment decisions only on valid job requirements. This policy shall apply to all employment actions, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, upgrading, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, recall, termination, rates of pay or other forms of compensation and selection for training, including apprenticeship, at all levels of employment.