Principal, Artificial Intelligence Engineering

OCC; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 159,200 - 220,200; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Tuition Reimbursement

Student Loan Repayment Assistance

Technology Stipend

Generous PTO

401k Employer Match

Competitive health benefits

Job summary

OCC, the world’s largest equity derivatives clearing organization in Chicago, is seeking a Principal AI Engineer to lead AI capabilities and mentor junior engineers. This role involves architecting systems connecting AI agents to enterprise workflows in a regulated financial environment. Applicants should have over 10 years in software engineering with a strong focus on AI and production systems.

The position offers a hybrid work environment, competitive compensation, and comprehensive benefits including 401k match and tuition reimbursement.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering and systems architecture experience.
• 5+ years as a senior individual contributor on complex systems.
• Experience mentoring junior engineers.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute OCC's AI technical roadmap.
• Build and operate systems connecting AI agents to workflows.
• Architect scalable systems integrating LLMs into internal systems.
• Serve as technical mentor for junior engineers.

Skills

Expert-level Python

Proficient in SQL

Distributed systems design

Hands-on data engineering

AWS experience

Strong production AI/LLM experience

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

THIS POSITION IS NOT ELIGIBLE FOR VISA SPONSORSHIP

What You’ll Do

OCC is the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization—the infrastructure that settles every U.S. options trade. We've recently formed a dedicated AI Research & Engineering team, and we're looking for a Principal AI Engineer to serve as its technical anchor.

This is a senior individual contributor role by design. You won't manage people; you'll do the work, set the technical standard, and lead through expertise. You'll be the primary driver of OCC's agentic AI capabilities, architecting and building the systems that connect AI agents to real enterprise workflows in one of the most consequential and carefully regulated environments in financial markets. You'll shape OCC's AI roadmap alongside the Executive Director of AI Engineering, mentor junior engineers, and have time for experimentation with frontier tools. Our team works directly with AWS and Anthropic, accessing Claude models through both.

If you're a seasoned engineer who wants to stay hands‑on, lead through technical excellence, and build agentic AI systems that matter, this role was written for you.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Partner with the Executive Director of AI Engineering to define and execute OCC's AI technical roadmap, translating organizational priorities into concrete architectural decisions
• Lead OCC's agentic AI efforts: architect, build, and operate systems that connect AI agents to internal systems, data pipelines, and business workflows
• Leverage OCC's direct relationships with AWS and Anthropic to evaluate and adopt new model capabilities and tooling as they become available
• Build and ship production AI applications on AWS using Claude and related Anthropic tooling, maintaining high standards for reliability, security, and auditability
• Architect scalable systems that integrate LLMs and AI agents into OCC's internal systems, operational workflows, and business processes, owning decisions from design through production deployment
• Serve as the primary technical mentor for junior engineers: conducting code and architecture reviews, modeling engineering best practices, and raising the team's overall technical level (no direct reports)
• Define and enforce AI safety standards appropriate for a regulated SIFMU environment, including hallucination detection, output validation, bias assessment, and audit trails that satisfy SEC and CFTC oversight expectations
• Establish responsible AI practices and safety guardrails for LLM applications operating on sensitive financial data
• Navigate OCC's change management and security review processes when deploying AI systems into production
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and provide concrete, risk‑aware recommendations on adoption

Supervisory Responsibilities

None

Qualifications

The requirements listed are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the primary functions.

Required

• Experience mentoring and elevating junior engineers

Preferred

• Exceptional ability to explain complex technical decisions to non‑technical stakeholders
• Background in financial market infrastructure, derivatives, or similarly regulated industries

Technical Skills

Required

• Expert‑level Python; proficient in SQL
• Deep system design expertise: distributed systems, microservices, event‑driven architectures, APIs, and MCP servers
• Hands‑on experience with data engineering: pipelines, transformation, and data modeling
• AWS experience; comfort with Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines
• Strong production AI/LLM experience, or demonstrated hands‑on passion for the space with the engineering depth to ramp quickly
• Strong working knowledge of AI risk vectors: hallucinations, prompt injection, bias, data privacy, and output validation

Preferred

• Production experience building and operating LLM‑powered applications
• Experience designing and operating agentic AI systems in enterprise environments
• Experience with context engineering strategies including RAG, prompt architecture, and retrieval pipeline design
• Familiarity with frontier models including Claude, GPT, and Gemini, and hands‑on experimentation with emerging tools
• Hands‑on experience with Anthropic's tooling and APIs, including the Claude API, Claude.ai, or the Anthropic Console
• Experience connecting AI agents to enterprise systems and workflows
• Infrastructure as code (Terraform)

Education and/or Experience

• Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science or a related technical field
• 10+ years of software engineering and systems architecture experience, with demonstrated technical leadership
• 5+ years as a senior individual contributor on complex, high‑stakes production systems

Certificates or Licenses

• None required

About Us

The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) is the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization. Founded in 1973, OCC is dedicated to promoting stability and market integrity by delivering clearing and settlement services for options, futures and securities lending transactions. As a Systemically Important Financial Market Utility (SIFMU), OCC operates under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. OCC has more than 100 clearing members and provides central counterparty (CCP) clearing and settlement services to 19 exchanges and trading platforms. More information about OCC is available at www.theocc.com.

Benefits

• A hybrid work environment, up to 2 days per week of remote work
• Tuition Reimbursement to support your continued education
• Student Loan Repayment Assistance
• Technology Stipend allowing you to use the device of your choice to connect to our network while working remotely
• Generous PTO and Parental leave
• 401k Employer Match
• Competitive health benefits including medical, dental and vision

Compensation

• The salary range listed for any given position is exclusive of fringe benefits and potential bonuses. If hired at OCC, your final base salary compensation will be determined by factors such as skills, experience and/or education.
• In addition, we believe in the importance of pay equity and consider internal equity of our current team members as part of any final offer.
• We typically do not hire at the maximum of the range in order to allow for future and continued salary growth. We also offer a substantial benefits package as noted on
• All employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus. Discretionary bonuses are based on various factors, including, but not limited to, company and individual performance and are not guaranteed.

Salary Range $159,200.00 - $220,200.00

Incentive Range 23% to 30%

This position is eligible for an annual discretionary incentive compensation award, for which the target range is listed above (see Incentive Range). The amount of such award, if any, will be based on various factors, including without limitation, both individual and company performance.