Executive Director- Applied AI/ML Lead

JPMorganChase; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

JPMorganChase in the United States (Palo Alto) seeks an Executive Director and Senior Principal Engineer for Applied AI/ML to lead hands-on development of production AI systems, including search, conversational AI, and agentic workflows.

You will be the senior technical authority, guiding architecture across retrieval strategies, orchestration patterns, and system design while collaborating with product and business stakeholders to deliver scalable, robust solutions.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of hands-on software engineering experience building production systems at scale, with focus on search, conversational AI, or workflow automation.
• Expert-level proficiency in Python, distributed systems, API design, and microservices architecture.
• Strong understanding of LLM capabilities, prompt engineering, context management, and using models as components without training/fine-tuning.

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and implement production-grade search, chatbot, and agentic workflow systems, writing and reviewing code daily.
• Serve as senior technical authority on LLM-powered applications, owning retrieval strategies, agent design, orchestration, and system architecture.
• Design scalable retrieval pipelines (hybrid search, re-ranking, chunking, embedding) and conversational AI systems with robust dialogue management and backend integration.
• Design and implement agentic workflows (tool use, multi-step planning, orchestration, error recovery, human-in-the-loop).
• Solve latency, reliability, observability, and non-deterministic system challenges.
• Define technical standards, patterns, and reference architectures for generative AI apps.
• Elevate engineering quality through design and code reviews and mentorship.
• Collaborate with product/business to translate requirements into technical designs.

Skills

Python

LLM

Distributed Systems

AWS

Tools

APIs

Microservices

Job description

Job Description

Join the Payments and Global Banking Technology team as an Executive Director and Senior Principal Engineer for Applied AI/ML. This is a hands‑on, code‑every‑day role focused on application‑layer engineering, using large language models as components within robust, scalable systems. You will design and build production search, conversational AI, and agentic workflow systems powered by generative AI to solve real business problems in banking and financial services. You will work with a team of engineers, but this is not a people management role.

Job Description

Join the Payments and Global Banking Technology team as an Executive Director and Senior Principal Engineer for Applied AI/ML. This is a hands‑on, code‑every‑day role focused on application‑layer engineering, using large language models as components within robust, scalable systems. You will design and build production search, conversational AI, and agentic workflow systems powered by generative AI to solve real business problems in banking and financial services. You will work with a team of engineers, but this is not a people management role.

As an Executive Director‑Applied AI/ML Lead in Payments and Global Banking Technology, you serve as the senior hands‑on technical authority designing and building production search, conversational AI, and agentic workflow systems powered by generative AI. You lead through technical excellence—setting the bar, unblocking hard problems, and increasing team effectiveness through craft and judgment. You make architecture and implementation decisions across retrieval strategies, agent design, orchestration patterns, and system design. You focus on building robust, scalable systems that solve real business problems in banking and financial services.

You will collaborate closely with engineering, product, and business stakeholders to translate requirements into high‑quality technical solutions, while raising engineering standards through design reviews, code reviews, and mentorship.

Job Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and personally implement production‑grade search, chatbot, and agentic workflow systems, writing and reviewing code daily.
• Serve as the organization’s senior technical authority on large language model (LLM)‑powered applications, owning decisions around retrieval strategies, agent design, orchestration patterns, and system architecture.
• Design and build scalable retrieval pipelines (hybrid search, re‑ranking, chunking, and embedding strategies) and conversational AI systems with robust dialogue management and backend integration.
• Design and implement agentic workflows (tool use, multi‑step planning, orchestration, error recovery, and human‑in‑the‑loop patterns) for complex business processes.
• Solve hard systems challenges, including latency optimization, reliability at scale, observability, and evaluation of non‑deterministic systems.
• Define technical standards, design patterns, and reference architectures for generative AI‑powered applications across the organization.
• Elevate engineering quality through design reviews, code reviews, and technical mentorship.
• Partner with product and business stakeholders to translate requirements into technical designs.

Required Qualifications, Capabilities, And Skills

• 10+ years of hands‑on software engineering experience building production systems at scale, with significant recent focus on search, conversational AI, or workflow automation.
• Expert‑level proficiency in Python, distributed systems, application programming interface (API) design, and microservices architecture.
• Strong understanding of LLM capabilities and limitations, including prompt engineering, context management, and output parsing, and effective use of models as components without training or fine‑tuning them.
• Deep experience with retrieval systems, conversational AI, or agentic architectures (tool calling, multi‑step planning, orchestration, and failure handling), across more than one of these areas.
• Strong systems thinking, including designing for latency, throughput, cost efficiency, and graceful degradation in non‑deterministic AI systems.
• Hands‑on experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services for production applications.
• Proven ability to elevate team output through technical leadership without relying on management hierarchy.
• Excellent technical communication skills across engineering and non‑technical audiences.

Preferred Qualifications, Capabilities, And Skills

• Experience building evaluation and testing frameworks for LLM‑powered applications.
• Familiarity with advanced retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) patterns, including query decomposition, multi‑index routing, contextual compression, and knowledge graph integration.
• Experience with agent orchestration at scale, including parallel tool execution, stateful workflows, and cost/token management.
• Experience operating AI‑powered systems in regulated environments, including model governance and explainability.

This position is subject to Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act. As such, an employment offer for this position is contingent on JPMorganChase’s review of criminal conviction history, including pretrial diversions or program entries.

About Us

JPMorganChase, one of the oldest financial institutions, offers innovative financial solutions to millions of consumers, small businesses and many of the world’s most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients under the J.P. Morgan and Chase brands. Our history spans over 200 years and today we are a leader in investment banking, consumer and small business banking, commercial banking, financial transaction processing and asset management.

We offer a competitive total rewards package including base salary determined based on the role, experience, skill set and location. Those in eligible roles may receive commission‑based pay and/or discretionary incentive compensation, paid in the form of cash and/or forfeitable equity, awarded in recognition of individual achievements and contributions.

We also offer a range of benefits and programs to meet employee needs, based on eligibility. These benefits include comprehensive health care coverage, on‑site health and wellness centers, a retirement savings plan, backup childcare, tuition reimbursement, mental health support, financial coaching and more. Additional details about total compensation and benefits will be provided during the hiring process.

• comprehensive health care coverage
• on‑site health and wellness centers
• a retirement savings plan
• backup childcare
• tuition reimbursement
• mental health support
• financial coaching and more.

We recognize that our people are our strength and the diverse talents they bring to our global workforce are directly linked to our success. We are an equal opportunity employer and place a high value on diversity and inclusion at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected attribute, including race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital or veteran status, pregnancy or disability, or any other basis protected under applicable law. We also make reasonable accommodations for applicants' and employees' religious practices and beliefs, as well as mental health or physical disability needs. Visit [https://…] for more information.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an Equal Opportunity Employer, including Disability/Veterans

About The Team

J.P. Morgan's Commercial & Investment Bank is a global leader across banking, markets, securities services and payments. Corporations, governments and institutions throughout the world entrust us with their business in more than 100 countries. The Commercial & Investment Bank provides strategic advice, raises capital, manages risk and extends liquidity in markets around the world.