Principal AI/ML Engineer

Vanguard; Charlotte (NC); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Vanguard is seeking a Principal AI Engineer to lead the architecture and delivery of enterprise-scale AI and ML platforms. You will shape production-ready systems, drive deployment decisions, and ensure reliability, security, and governance at scale.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with researchers, product and security teams, and set engineering standards to accelerate research-to-production and deliver measurable client value.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, AI engineering, or related technical disciplines.
• Deep expertise designing, deploying, and supporting large-scale AI and ML systems in production environments.
• Proven success leading complex technical initiatives from concept through deployment and ongoing operations.
• Strong knowledge of software architecture, reliability engineering, observability, ML Ops, DevOps, and cloud technologies.
• Proven ability to mentor engineers and lead teams through highly complex technical and operational challenges.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the technical architecture for enterprise-scale AI and ML platforms.
• Design scalable, resilient, and reusable AI systems for mission-critical workloads.
• Establish standards and best practices for AI deployment and operations.
• Drive decisions around model serving, inference optimization, agent architectures, orchestration, observability, and AI infrastructure.
• Mentor engineers and lead production reliability, incident response, and post-incident reviews.
• Partner with researchers, product leaders, and engineering teams to accelerate research-to-production and scale AI across the organization.

Skills

Software engineering

ML engineering

AI engineering

Reliability engineering

ML Ops / DevOps

Cloud technologies

Mentoring engineers

Job description

As a Principal AI Engineer, you will serve as a senior technical leader responsible for transforming state-of-the-arc AI research into scalable, production-ready capabilities that create measurable value for our clients. You will lead the architecture, engineering, operationalization, and ongoing reliability of advanced AI systems, ensuring they can scale across enterprise environments while meeting rigorous standards for performance, security, resilience, and responsible AI. This role sits at the critical intersection of AI research, engineering, product development, and operations. You will partner closely with world-class AI researchers, product leaders, and engineering teams to accelerate the journey from prototype to production. Your work will span some of the most advanced areas of AI, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Trustworthy AI, agentic systems, and emerging AI technologies. You will mentor engineers, shape architecture, guide production support strategy, and serve as a thought leader for scaling AI across the organization. In addition to building and scaling AI solutions, you will help establish an engineering culture that emphasizes operational excellence, ownership, reliability, and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

AI Architecture & Technical Leadership

• Define and lead the technical architecture for enterprise-scale AI and ML platforms.
• Design scalable, resilient, and reusable AI systems capable of supporting mission-critical workloads.
• Establish architectural standards, engineering patterns, and best practices for AI deployment and operations.
• Drive technical decisions around model serving, inference optimization, agent architectures, orchestration frameworks, observability, and AI infrastructure.

Productize AI Research

• Partner closely with AI researchers to transform cutting-edge prototypes into production-grade solutions.
• Lead efforts to operationalize advanced AI capabilities across areas such as:
• Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Trustworthy and Responsible AI
• Agentic AI Systems
• Establish repeatable pathways that accelerate innovation-to-production cycles.
• Ensure production solutions maintain scientific rigour while meeting enterprise engineering standards.
• Bridge the gap between research breakthroughs and sustainable business value.

Engineering Excellence & Scalability

• Solve the organization's most complex AI engineering and scalability challenges.
• Design systems that operate reliably at enterprise scale while balancing performance, latency, governance, security, and cost.
• Drive adoption of MLOps, LLMOps, and AI platform engineering best practices.
• Improve the robustness, maintainability, observability, and operational readiness of our AI products.
• Identify and eliminate architectural bottlenecks that impact scale, reliability, or client experience.
• Raise standards through coaching, architecture reviews, design guidance, and technical leadership.

Production Reliability & Operational Leadership

• Own the operational excellence, reliability, performance and availability of our products.
• Lead technical response and resolution efforts for complex production incidents, performance degradation, model failures, and system outages.
• Serve as the senior technical escalation point for the team's most challenging production challenges.
• Establish best practices for AI system monitoring, observability, alerting, incident management, capacity planning, and service-level objectives (SLOs).
• Mentor and lead junior engineers in troubleshooting, root cause analysis, operational decision-making, and incident response.
• Drive post-incident reviews focused on learning, continuous improvement, and long-term corrective actions.
• Develop operational processes that ensure AI solutions remain secure, scalable, performant, and reliable for business-critical use cases.
• Partner with product, infrastructure, security, and support teams to proactively identify operational risks and continuously improve service reliability.

Mentorship & Thought Leadership

• Mentor AI and ML engineers within the team.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence and operational ownership where engineers are accountable not only for building systems, but also for running and supporting them successfully in production.
• Represent our team as a thought leader in scalable AI deployment, operational excellence, and responsible AI practices.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, AI engineering, or related technical disciplines.
• Deep expertise designing, deploying, and supporting large-scale AI and ML systems in production environments.
• Demonstrated success leading complex technical initiatives from concept through deployment and ongoing operations.
• Strong knowledge of software architecture, reliability engineering, observability, ML Ops, DevOps, and cloud technologies.
• Proven ability to mentor engineers and lead teams through highly complex technical and operational challenges.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with foundation models, Large Language Models, and agentic AI architectures.
• Experience deploying agentic AI systems and multi-agent workflows.
• Experience with Trustworthy AI, Responsible AI, AI governance, or model risk management frameworks.
• Experience optimizing large-scale inference systems and AI infrastructure.
• Experience working in highly regulated environments and mission-critical production systems.

What You'll Gain

This role offers a unique opportunity to operate at the forefront of applied artificial intelligence and help bridge world-class research with real-world impact.

You will:

• Work directly with world-class AI researchers on breakthrough technologies and next-generation AI capabilities.
• Own a critical position in the pipeline that transforms cutting-edge research into client value.
• Tackle some of the most difficult AI engineering, scalability, and operational challenges in the industry.
• Build AI capabilities that deliver meaningful business outcomes for clients.
• Develop deep expertise in operating advanced AI systems at scale while collaborating with leaders across research, product, and engineering.

Special Factors

Sponsorship

Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position.

About Vanguard

At Vanguard, we don't just have a mission - we're on a mission.

To work for the long-term financial wellbeing of our clients. To lead through product and services that transform our clients' lives. To learn and develop our skills as individuals and as a team. From Malvern to Melbourne, our mission drives us forward and inspires us to be our best.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.