Sr Manager, IT AI Engineering

American Airlines; Fort Worth (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Travel perks

Health benefits

Wellness programs

401(k) program

Other benefits

Job summary

American Airlines is seeking an experienced AI Engineering leader to design, deliver, and oversee agentic software applications supporting business processes. You will ensure reliability, security, and cost efficiency across production environments while guiding cross-functional teams.

The role requires deep technical leadership in backend systems, API design, and Agile methods, with a strong emphasis on privacy and responsible AI.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, or related discipline.
• 7+ years delivering ITIL/Agile/XP or similar methodologies.
• 5+ years leading product teams.

Responsibilities

• Ensure agent designs meet reliability, latency, cost efficiency, and maintainability in production.
• Guide solutions with strong business and technical perspective; coordinate with Engineers and Managers.
• Align with leadership to execute technical vision and roadmaps; manage communication with stakeholders.
• Implement safeguards for privacy, security, and responsible AI; data handling and audit logging.
• Foster self-governing engineering teams accountable for performance and delivery.

Skills

Backend engineering

API design

Leadership

Agile leadership

Executive communication

Multi-tasking

Financial awareness

Education

Bachelor's degree in Technology/CS

Master's degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

Semantic Kernel

LangChain/LangGraph

Microsoft Copilot Studio

OpenAI/Anthropic tool calling

Job description

Intro Are you ready to explore a world of possibilities, both at work and during your time off? Join our American Airlines family, and you’ll travel the world, grow your expertise and become the best version of you. As you embark on a new journey, you’ll tackle challenges with flexibility and grace, learning new skills and advancing your career while having the time of your life. Feel free to enrich both your personal and work life and hop on board!

Intro Are you ready to explore a world of possibilities, both at work and during your time off? Join our American Airlines family, and you’ll travel the world, grow your expertise and become the best version of you. As you embark on a new journey, you’ll tackle challenges with flexibility and grace, learning new skills and advancing your career while having the time of your life. Feel free to enrich both your personal and work life and hop on board!

Why you'll love this job

• As one diverse, high-performing team dedicated to technical excellence, you will focus relentlessly on delivering unrivaled digital products that drive a more reliable and profitable airline.
• The AI Engineering domain is an area focused on development, deployment, management, and maintenance of Agentic software applications that support business processes and user needs while ensuring reliability, performance, and security. This includes development, application lifecycle management, requirement analysis, QA, security & compliance, and maintaining the applications and infrastructure while following responsible AI practices.

What You'll Do

As noted above, this list is intended to reflect the current job but there may be additional essential functions (and certainly non-essential job functions) that are not referenced. Management will modify the job or require other tasks be performed whenever it is deemed appropriate to do so, observing, of course, any legal obligations including any collective bargaining obligations.

• Ensure agent designs meet requirements for reliability, latency, cost efficiency, and maintainability in production environments.
• Exhibits strong business and leadership skills, deep technology perspective to guide solutions, and strong communication skills to coordinate with Engineers and Engineering Managers to ensure they understand business needs and objectives, as well as technical requirements of products
• Collaborates with Business and IT leadership to execute and communicate organization’s technical vision, mission, and work priorities, and drives progress towards roadmaps and ensures efficient technical product management and effective communication with stakeholders
• Implement safeguards for privacy, security, and responsible AI: data handling, access controls, content filtering, audit logging, and human-in-the-loop controls where appropriate
• Supports an environment for engineering teams to be self-governing organizations who are accountable for their own performance and delivery commitments and measured accordingly
• Communicates across engineering teams to relay business and IT initiatives, priorities, and support clear adherence to business priorities
• Leads, develops, and mentors leaders and top performers across the engineering teams to build next generation of leaders
• Responsible for budget management, forecasting, resource allocation, and long-term planning to drive alignment with business priorities

All you'll need for success

Minimum Qualifications- Education & Prior Job Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, or related technical discipline, or equivalent experience/training
• 7+ years of experience participating in delivery of solutions using ITIL / Agile / XP, or similar methodologies
• 5+ years of experience leading product teams

Preferred Qualifications- Education & Prior Job Experience

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Technology, Information Systems (CIS/MIS), Engineering or related technical discipline, or equivalent experience/training
• Strong understanding of LLM-based systems, including agent patterns, RAG, tool/function calling, prompt engineering, and evaluation method
• Proven experience delivering production AI solutions with measurable business outcomes
• Experience building agentic orchestration using frameworks such as Semantic Kernel, LangChain/LangGraph, Microsoft Copilot Studio, OpenAI/Anthropic tool calling patterns, or equivalent internal frameworks
• Airline industry experience, including engineering / business processes and supporting technology

Skills, Licenses & Certifications

• Proven track record in leading Engineering initiatives that generate substantial value; well organized, able to multi-task, able to prioritize with minimal direction
• Hands-on expertise in backend engineering (e.g., Python, Java, C#, or Node.js) and API/service design
• Strong technical leadership, and extensive experience in Agile methodology-style leadership environment
• Excellent communication skills to present to executive management often and emphasize the important intersection of business and technology
• Proven ability to handle multiple products/work streams and demands efficiently
• Experience in leading a team of individuals with various levels of skills and experience in potentially high stress and challenging situations
• Demonstrated initiative, flexibility, and ability to adapt to changing priorities and work environment
• Leads, influences, and upholds technology standards to ensure resiliency goals are met and continuously improved upon
• Good understanding of financial practices

What You'll Get

Feel free to take advantage of all that American Airlines has to offer:

• Travel Perks: Ready to explore the world? You, your family and your friends can reach 365 destinations on more than 6,800 daily flights across our global network.
• Health Benefits: On day one, you’ll have access to your health, dental, prescription and vision benefits to help you stay well. And that’s just the start, we also offer virtual doctor visits, flexible spending accounts and more.
• Wellness Programs: We want you to be the best version of yourself – that’s why our wellness programs provide you with all the right tools, resources and support you need.
• 401(k) Program: Available upon hire and, depending on the workgroup, employer contributions to your 401(k) program are available after one year.
• Additional Benefits: Other great benefits include our Employee Assistance Program, pet insurance and discounts on hotels, cars, cruises and more

Feel free to be yourself at American

From the team members we hire to the customers we serve, inclusion and diversity are the foundation of the dynamic workforce at American Airlines. Our 20+ Team Member Business Resource Groups are focused on connecting our team members to our customers, suppliers, communities and shareholders, helping team members reach their full potential and creating an inclusive work environment to meet and exceed the needs of our diverse world.

Are you ready to feel a tremendous sense of pride and satisfaction as you do your part to keep the largest airline in the world running smoothly as we care for people on life’s journey? Feel free to be yourself at American.