Principal Software Engineer

Fifth Third Bank; Auburn Hills (MI); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Fifth Third Bank is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to design and implement AI-enhanced software within an agile squad, guiding architecture and best practices across multiple services.

You will work on AI-enabled tools, copilots, and agentic workflows, partnering with architecture, security, risk, and data teams to ensure scalable, secure, and observable solutions across enterprise systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Information Systems or comparable with 8+ years of experience.
• Experience designing distributed systems, APIs, and service integrations.
• Familiarity with AI/ML concepts and modern AI patterns.

Responsibilities

• Designs and implements technology and software solutions within an agile squad.
• Designs and implements AI-enabled software capabilities and orchestration patterns.
• Mentors developers, enforces standards, and guides across teams.
• Ensures security, privacy, and governance considerations in AI solutions.
• Maintains observability, testing, and performance monitoring for AI-powered systems.

Skills

Object-oriented design

Functional design

RESTful APIs

Git/GitHub

AI/ML concepts

Distributed systems

Security best practices

Team collaboration

Communication skills

System architecture tradeoffs

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/IS or comparable

Job description

Make banking a Fifth Third better®
We connect great people to great opportunities. Are you ready to take the next step? Discover a career in banking at Fifth Third Bank.

GENERAL FUNCTION:

Designs and implements technology and software solutions as a member of an agile squad. Being assigned to an agile squad means this role also participates in all agile ceremonies driving activities from architecture and design to delivery. Models software development best practices and leads communities of practice to continuously refine and document standards and best practices.

In addition, this role helps evaluate, design, and implement AI-assisted engineering capabilities, including internal developer tools, agentic workflows, orchestration patterns, prompt and tool integration, and secure usage patterns for enterprise AI platforms. Works across teams to ensure AI-enabled solutions are scalable, maintainable, observable, secure, and aligned to business and technology standards.

Responsible and accountable for risk by openly exchanging ideas and opinions, elevating concerns, and personally following policies and procedures as defined. Accountable for always doing the right thing for customers and colleagues, and ensures that actions and behaviors drive a positive customer experience. While operating within the Bank’s risk appetite, achieves results by consistently identifying, assessing, managing, monitoring, and reporting risks of all types.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Design and implement new features while improving quality of technical products and applications
• Create and execute long-term vision of technical products and applications
• Act as a technical expert and developer on an agile squad
• Drive the architecture of solutions across multiple services and applications
• Develop software meeting code quality standards and metrics
• Practice test-driven development
• Guide communities of practice by mentoring developers, creating and enforcing standards, reviewing others’ code, and sharing knowledge
• Achieve operational excellence by automating processes and writing maintainable, supportable, and testable code
• Maintain effective partnerships with operations and engineering teams to drive service improvement
• Remain current on IT trends pertaining to their area of practice
• Assist with problem resolution for end users and customers
• Create and update operations procedures for daily routine management processes
• Maintain appropriate controls and documentation to ensure compliance of audit requirements
• Design, build, and support AI-enabled software capabilities, including internal tools, developer assistants, copilots, and agentic workflows
• Define and implement orchestration patterns for AI agents, tools, APIs, prompts, memory, and workflow execution across enterprise systems
• Partner with architecture, security, risk, data, and engineering teams to establish guardrails for responsible AI development and usage
• Evaluate and integrate large language models, AI platforms, model providers, and related tooling into enterprise software delivery workflows
• Build reusable frameworks, services, and patterns that enable teams to safely adopt AI capabilities at scale
• Establish observability, logging, testing, and performance monitoring for AI-powered solutions and agentic workflows
• Ensure AI solutions meet enterprise standards for security, privacy, resiliency, explainability, and human oversight where appropriate
• Contribute to standards, reference architectures, and best practices for AI engineering, prompt design, tool use, and workflow orchestration
• Identify opportunities to improve developer productivity, automation, and customer outcomes through intelligent tooling and AI-assisted processes
• Mentor engineers on modern software engineering and emerging AI engineering practices
• Other duties as assigned

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

None

MINIMUM KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES REQUIRED:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Information Systems or comparable with 8+ years of experience
• Knowledge of object-oriented and functional software design
• Knowledge of software development best practices
• Familiarity with RESTful networking
• Prior experience with knowledge of Git and GitHub
• Understanding of Software Development Methodologies
• Understanding of security best practices
• Strong problem solving skills
• Strong collaboration skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Experience designing and implementing distributed systems, APIs, and service integrations
• Familiarity with AI/ML concepts and modern AI application patterns, including large language models, prompt engineering, retrieval patterns, and agentic workflows
• Experience building or integrating automation, workflow orchestration, or intelligent tooling into engineering or business processes
• Understanding of responsible AI principles, including model risk, privacy, security, human oversight, and governance considerations
• Ability to evaluate tradeoffs across software architecture, AI capabilities, operational support, and enterprise controls
• Experience defining technical standards, reusable patterns, and engineering best practices across teams
• Ability to work across product, engineering, architecture, security, and risk stakeholders to deliver scalable enterprise solutions

Position not available for immigration sponsorship.

#LI-CB2

Principal Software Engineer

At Fifth Third, we understand the importance of recognizing our employees for the role they play in improving the lives of our customers, communities and each other. Our Total Rewards include comprehensive benefits and differentiated compensation offerings to give each employee the opportunity to be their best every day.

The base salary for this position is reflective of the range of salary levels for all roles within this pay grade across the U.S. Individual salaries within this range will vary based on factors such as role, relevant skillset, relevant experience, education and geographic location. In addition to the base salary, this role is eligible to participate in an incentive compensation plan, with any such payment based upon company, line of business and/or individual performance.

Our extensive benefits programs are designed to support the individual needs of our employees and their families, encompassing physical, financial, emotional and social well-being.You can learn more about those programs on our 53.com Careers page at: https://www.53.com/content/fifth-third/en/careers/benefits.html or by consulting with your talent acquisition partner.

LOCATION – Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Fifth Third Bank, National Association is proud to have an engaged and inclusive culture and to promote and ensure equal employment opportunity in all employment decisions regardless of race, color, gender, national origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status, veteran status or any other legally protected status.