Principal Engineer - AI/ML Engineering

Cellco Partnership; Basking Ridge (NJ); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Verizon is seeking a senior AI/ML architect to lead the technical vision, architecture, and delivery of agentic AI solutions within the Verizon Consumer Group AI team. You will shape production-grade systems powering digital channels, sales, and customer success.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with security, legal, and architecture teams to ensure compliance, and develop a 3–5 year roadmap for agentic technology across VCG in a hybrid work model with NJ in-office days.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or four or more years of work experience.
• Six or more years of relevant experience required.
• Three or more years of experience designing, building, and deploying production AI/ML systems at scale.
• Experience with Agile methodologies.

Responsibilities

• Drive the technical strategy, research, and application of agentic AI and LLMs.
• Design production-grade, scalable AI/ML pipelines and agent architectures.
• Collaborate with security, legal, and architecture teams for compliance.
• Partner with operations and strategy teams to identify high-impact applications.
• Develop a 3–5 year technical roadmap for agentic systems across VCG.
• Mentor engineers and establish engineering best practices.
• Translate complex concepts into clear narratives for executives.

Skills

AI/ML architecture

Production systems design

Leadership

Python & ML frameworks

Cloud deployment (GCP)

Security & compliance

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher

Tools

LangChain

LangGraph

Pytest

Elasticsearch

FastAPI

Docker

Job description

When you join Verizon

You want more out of a career. A place to share your ideas freely - even if they're daring or different. Where the true you can learn, grow, and thrive. At Verizon, we power and empower how people live, work and play by connecting them to what brings them joy. We do what we love - driving innovation, creativity, and impact in the world. Our V Team is a community of people who anticipate, lead, and believe that listening is where learning begins. In crisis and in celebration, we come together - lifting our communities and building trust in how we show up, everywhere & always. Want in? Join the #VTeamLife.

What you'll be doing...

You will lead the technical vision, architectural design, and execution of cutting-edge agentic AI/ML solutions within the Verizon Consumer Group (VCG) AI team. By shaping the future of customer experience, you will build intelligent, autonomous agents that power our digital channels, sales, and customer success ecosystems. Partnering with cross-functional leadership, you will translate long-term strategy into robust, scalable, and secure production systems.

Responsibilities include:

• Driving the technical strategy, research, and application of advanced agentic AI, large language models (LLMs), and cognitive frameworks to solve complex consumer challenges.
• Designing and implementing production-grade, highly scalable AI/ML pipelines and agent architectures that integrate seamlessly with digital and customer success platforms.
• Collaborating with GTS Architecture, Security, and Legal teams to ensure all agentic systems conform to the highest standards of data privacy, compliance, and engineering rigor.
• Partnering with Customer Service Operations and VCG Strategy teams to identify high-impact business applications and translate them into robust technical designs.
• Developing and maintaining a three-to-five-year technical roadmap for agentic systems across VCG, outlining the future state of the technology stack.
• Mentoring engineers, establishing engineering best practices, and introducing red-teaming methodologies to stress-test system capabilities and safety boundaries.
• Translating complex technical concepts, system architectures, and AI breakthroughs into clear and compelling narratives for executive presentations.

What we're looking for...

You'll need to have:

• Bachelor's degree or four or more years of work experience.
• Six or more years of relevant experience required, demonstrated through work experience and/or military experience.
• Three or more years of experience designing, building, and deploying production AI/ML systems at scale.
• Experience with software development methodologies (e.g., Agile).

Even better if you have one or more of the following:

• A Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related quantitative field.
• Hands-on experience building production conversational AI with Python, Google ADK, LangGraph, LangChain, or comparable frameworks, including multi-agent orchestration, stateful workflows, and enterprise tool integration.
• Experience designing and developing asynchronous APIs and services using FastAPI and Pydantic, integrating enterprise REST, GraphQL, or SOAP services, and implementing Model Context Protocol (MCP) and agent-to-agent communication.
• Experience with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, Elasticsearch/vector search, and semantic routing, along with model gateways such as LiteLLM.
• Experience deploying and operating cloud-native AI applications on GCP, including Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Cloud Storage, and BigQuery, using Docker and CI/CD pipelines.
• Knowledge of PostgreSQL and Redis for conversational state, persistence, and caching, with a focus on scalability, reliability, and performance.
• Experience developing automated AI evaluations and regression tests, including pytest, tool-call and conversation-trajectory validation, and LLM-as-judge evaluations.
• Experience with AI observability and production troubleshooting using OpenTelemetry, New Relic, Arize Phoenix, Galileo, or comparable tools, including monitoring quality, latency, and cost.
• Familiarity with enterprise customer-service platforms such as Pega, and Digital Hub, and experience integrating AI into retail, IVR, or anything similar billing, ordering, or retention workflows with appropriate authorization and transaction safeguards.
• Proven ability to lead technical architecture, planning, and prioritization; collaborate across engineering, product, and business teams; and deliver multiple large-scale initiatives in a dynamic, Agile environment.

Where you'll be working

In this hybrid role, you'll have a defined work location that includes working from home and a minimum of three days per week in the office, which will be set by your manager. Employees are responsible for maintaining compliance