Associate Director / Lead Engineer, GenAI

FINRA; Rockville (MD); Hybrid; USD 131,000 - 238,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) match

Tuition reimbursement

Commuter benefits

Job summary

FINRA is seeking an Associate Director / Lead Engineer to guide a small software team focused on data pipelines, retrieval systems, and knowledge integrations that power a generative AI platform.

The role balances hands-on engineering with strategic planning, stakeholder communication, and team development, including performance management and budget oversight.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Information Systems or related field with at least five years of related experience.
• Master’s degree and financial services experience preferred.

Responsibilities

• Direct and mentor a small team of software engineers delivering data pipelines, retrieval systems, and knowledge integrations.
• Lead architectural direction and ensure high-quality, scalable solutions.

Skills

Leadership

Team management

Architectural direction

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/IS

Master’s degree preferred

Tools

ISO-9000

ITIL

Agile

Job description

The Associate Director / Lead Engineer leads a small team of software engineers responsible for designing and delivering the data pipelines, retrieval systems, and knowledge integrations that power a generative AI platform. This role combines technical leadership with people management — setting architectural direction, removing blockers, and ensuring the team delivers high-quality, scalable solutions. The Associate Director /Lead Engineer balances hands‑on technical involvement with strategic planning, stakeholder communication, and team development.

Essential Job Functions

• Directly manage team(s) focused on delivering high quality project results within one or more major technology disciplines: strategy, software development, operations, engineering, development services, information security, and compliance.
• Focus on team leadership, delivery of business value, risk mitigation, cost optimization and return on investment.
• Deliver results based upon FINRA annual goals, department goals and management requests.
• Direct and coordinate organization’s financial and budget activities to fund operations, maximize investments, and increase efficiency for a project(s).
• Ensure technology best practices are being implemented and improved within team(s).
• Analyze information and evaluate results to choose the best solutions and solve problems.
• Support the evaluation of new technologies, techniques, and tools.
• Report status and issues to senior Technology management team.
• Work directly with outside vendors to negotiate services and product agreements
• Willingness to lead, take responsibility and offer options.
• Serve as a backup to more senior level management as needed.
• Develop constructive and cooperative working relationships with peers both within and outside of Technology, and maintain them over time.
• Establish and maintain external relationships with strategic product/service vendors and industry forums (government & private councils, standards bodies, product forums, etc.), as appropriate.
• Contribute to the establishment, evolution and continued compliance with standard practices and processes within the disciplines.
• Assist with adherence to technology policies and comply with all security controls.
• Ensure all work products meets/exceeds FINRA standards and risks are effectively managed.
• Participate in periodic Disaster Recovery (DR), Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) testing and reporting.

Resource Management

• Identify and hire resource/skills needed within their organization.
• Responsible for staff performance management and training.
• Coordinate assignment of subordinate staff.
• Demonstration of FINRA’s values.
• Collaboration, both in-person and virtually, in furtherance of FINRA’s mission of investor protection and market integrity.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Set the technical vision and architectural direction for knowledge framework integrations, including data ingestion, embedding pipelines, and retrieval systems
• Make key design decisions on pipeline architecture, data modeling, and search strategies, balancing quality, performance, and delivery timelines
• Evaluate and recommend technologies, frameworks, and approaches for knowledge integration challenges
• Maintain sufficient hands‑on involvement to provide credible technical guidance and unblock the team on complex problems
• Demonstrate solid understanding of systems and processes within the domain and recommend improvements

Team Leadership & People Management

• Manage, mentor, and develop a small team of software engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Conduct regular one‑on‑ones, provide constructive feedback, and support career growth for direct reports
• Plan and prioritize team workload, balancing feature delivery, technical debt, and operational responsibilities
• Recruit, onboard, and ramp new team members as the team scales
• Champion collaborative resolution of defects and lead internal process improvement initiatives

Engineering Excellence & Quality

• Establish and enforce engineering standards for code quality, testing, documentation, and peer review across the team
• Guide the team in best practices for data pipeline development, retrieval system design, and test automation
• Ensure comprehensive test coverage including unit testing, integration testing, and retrieval quality evaluation
• Drive adoption of test‑driven development (TDD) practices and automated quality gates

Planning & Delivery

• Own the team’s roadmap and delivery commitments, translating business requirements into actionable technical plans
• Break down complex integration initiatives into well‑scoped work items with clear acceptance criteria
• Track progress, identify risks early, and adjust plans to meet deadlines without sacrificing quality
• Provide regular status updates and delivery forecasts to leadership

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Partner with product, platform engineering, and agent development teams to align knowledge integration priorities with broader platform goals
• Communicate complex or technical information at the appropriate level for diverse audiences including leadership, peers, and external partners
• Represent the team in cross‑functional planning sessions, architecture reviews, and prioritization discussions
• Build strong working relationships across the organization to facilitate collaboration and shared accountability

Generative AI & Emerging Technologies

• Stay informed of advances in RAG architectures, embedding models, retrieval optimization, and knowledge management approaches
• Evaluate emerging technologies and techniques for applicability to the team’s work, making build‑vs‑buy recommendations
• Drive innovation within the team by creating space for experimentation and proof‑of‑concept work

Security & Compliance

• Ensure all team deliverables meet or exceed organizational standards for secure development practices
• Oversee secure handling of sensitive domain data throughout the ingestion and retrieval lifecycle
• Assist with adherence to technology policies and ensure the team complies with all security controls
• Participate in threat modeling and security discussions for data pipeline and infrastructure components

Education/Experience Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or related discipline with at least five (5) years of related experience, or equivalent training and/or work experience; Master’s degree and past Financial Services industry experience preferred.

• Minimum of 3 years of managing technical programs and/or processes including staff management of at least four (4) resources and budget of at least $1 million annually.

• Knowledge of business, technology and management principles involved in strategic planning, organizational change management, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, and coordination of people and resources.

• Experience must include direct project experience in one of the following areas: strategy, software development, operations, engineering, development services, information security, and/or compliance.

• Extensive knowledge of industry leading technology best practices including familiarity with technology methodologies including at least one of ISO-9000, ITIL, Agile and iterative.

• Excellent written and verbal technical communication skills.

• Demonstrated ability to develop effective working relationships and leverage those relationships to improve the quality of work products.

• Must be able to identify, evaluate and recommend processes, tools, technologies and/or products to meet business and budgetary requirements.

• Should be well organized, thorough, and able to handle competing priorities.

• Ability to maintain focus and develop proficiency in new skills rapidly.

• Ability to work in a fast paced environment.

Work Conditions

• Hybrid work environment, with defined in‑person presence requirements.

• Occasional travel and extended hours may be required.

For work that is performed in CO, FL, TX, IL, PA, MA, MD, VA, Washington, DC, NY and NJ, please refer to the chart below for the salary range for the corresponding location. FINRA complies with all state and local pay transparency laws and regulations requiring the disclosure of salary ranges for the position. In addition to location, actual compensation is based on various factors, including but not limited to, the candidate’s skill set, level of experience, education, and market considerations.

CO/FL/TX: Minimum Salary $114,200, Maximum Salary $207,200

IL/PA: Minimum Salary $125,900, Maximum Salary $228,000
MA/MD/VA/Washington, DC: Minimum Salary $131,200, Maximum Salary $238,300

NY/NJ: Minimum Salary $131,200, Maximum Salary $248,700

#LI-Hybrid

Employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay. Non‑exempt employees are also eligible for overtime pay in accordance with federal, state, or local law. As part of its dedication to employee wellness, FINRA provides comprehensive health, dental and vision insurance. Additional insurance includes basic life, accidental death and dismemberment, supplemental life, spouse/domestic partner and dependent life, and spouse/domestic partner and dependent accidental death and dismemberment, short‑ and long‑term disability, long‑term care, business travel accident, disability and legal. FINRA offers immediate participation and vesting in a 401(k) plan with company match and eligibility for participation in an additional FINRA‑funded retirement contribution, tuition reimbursement, commuter benefits, and other benefits that support employee wellness, such as adoption assistance, backup family care, surrogacy benefits, employee assistance, and wellness programs.

Time Off and Paid Leave*

FINRA encourages its employees to focus on their health and wellness in many ways, including through a generous time‑off program of 15 days of paid time off, 5 personal days and 9 sick days, unless otherwise required by law (all pro‑rated in the first year). Additionally, we are proud to support our communities by providing two volunteer service days (based on full‑time schedule). Other paid leave includes military leave, jury duty leave, bereavement leave, voting and election official leave for federal, state or local primary and general elections, care of a family member leave (available after 90 days of employment); and childbirth and parental leave (available after 90 days of employment). Full‑time employees receive nine paid holidays.

*Based on full‑time schedule

Important Information

FINRA’s Code of Conduct imposes restrictions on employees’ investments and requires financial disclosures that are uniquely related to our role as a securities regulator. FINRA employees are required to disclose to FINRA all brokerage accounts that they maintain, and those in which they control trading or have a financial interest (including any trust account of which they are a trustee or beneficiary and all accounts of a spouse, domestic partner or minor child who lives with the employee) and to authorize their broker‑dealers to provide FINRA with duplicate statements for all of those accounts. All of those accounts are subject to the Code’s investment and securities account restrictions, and new employees must comply with those investment restrictions—including disposing of any security issued by a company on FINRA’s Prohibited Company List or obtaining a written waiver from their Executive Vice President—by the date they begin employment with FINRA. Employees may only maintain securities accounts that must be disclosed to FINRA at one or more securities firms that provide an electronic feed (e‑feed) of data to FINRA, and must move securities accounts from other securities firms to a firm that provides an e‑feed within three months of beginning employment.

You can read more about these restrictions here.

As standard practice, employees must also execute FINRA’s Employee Confidentiality and Invention Assignment Agreement without qualification or modification and comply with the company’s policy on nepotism.

Search Firm Representatives

Please be advised that FINRA is not seeking assistance or accepting unsolicited resumes from search firms for this employment opportunity. Regardless of past practice, a valid written agreement and task order must be in place before any resumes are submitted to FINRA. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at FINRA without a valid written agreement and task order in place will be deemed the sole property of FINRA and no fee will be paid in the event that person is hired by FINRA.

FINRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer

All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to any legally protected category, including race, color, age, national origin, ethnicity, religion, disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, sex, or any other status or classification protected by state or local law.

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FINRA abides by the requirements of 41 CFR 60-741.5(a). This regulation prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals on the basis of disability and requires affirmative action by covered prime contractors and subcontractors to employ and advance in employment qualified individuals with disabilities.

FINRA abides by the requirements of 41 CFR 60-300.5(a). This regulation prohibits discrimination against qualified protected veterans and requires affirmative action by covered prime contractors and subcontractors to employ and advance in employment qualified protected veterans.

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