Tech Lead Manager

ChenMed; Town of Florida (NY); On-site; USD 118,062 - 168,658; Full time

Job summary

ChenMed is seeking a Senior AI Engineering Leader to manage a Python-focused AI software engineering team responsible for building and delivering production AI and agentic applications. You will provide technical direction, staff leadership, and governance across multi-step LLM workflows and integration with upstream and downstream services.

The role requires deep Python expertise, hands-on AI/LLM experience, and strong leadership in distributed systems, CI/CD, and modern DevOps practices.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional IT/software engineering experience.
• 4+ years of hands-on Python development.
• 1-2 years leading or managing software teams.
• Experience designing and operating production software at scale.
• Experience with AI/LLM-powered applications or agent-based systems.
• Experience with event-driven or microservices architectures (CQRS, event sourcing, Kafka).

Responsibilities

• Manages and leads a Python-focused AI software engineering team for production AI and agentic apps.
• Provides leadership through staffing, onboarding, training, and coaching.
• Guides architecture for Python-based AI agent applications and multi-step LLM workflows.
• Implements modern software engineering practices: PR reviews, tests, CI/CD, ADRs.
• Ensures alignment with CQRS, event sourcing, and asynchronous messaging across domains.
• Translates business requirements into technical AI-enabled designs.
• Monitors performance, reliability, and cost of AI applications and infrastructure.
• Develops a service measurement framework for AI engineering.
• Manages 3–5 employees and coaches peers; supports resource managers.

Skills

Python development

AI/LLM

Distributed systems

Leadership

DevOps/CI-CD

Education

6+ years IT/software engineering

4+ years Python

1-2 years leading teams

Production software at scale

Tools

Kubernetes

Kafka

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Responsibilities

• Manages, coordinates, plans, and leads a Python-focused AI software engineering team, including analysis, design, development, building and delivery of production AI and agentic applications.
• Provides leadership and technical direction by meeting staffing needs through hiring, onboarding, training, coaching, evaluating, and managing direct reports, while growing the team’s proficiency in Python, AI/LLM application development, and modern software delivery practices.
• Guides the team’s approach to building and operating Python-based AI agent applications, including orchestration of multi-step LLM workflows, tool and function calling, and integration with upstream and downstream services.
• Establishes and enforces modern software engineering practices, including pull‑request code review, automated testing (unit, integration, and contract tests), CI/CD pipelines, static analysis, and architecture decision records (ADRs) to document significant technical choices.
• Partners with enterprise architecture to ensure AI services align with the organization’s event‑driven and distributed systems patterns — including separation of command and query responsibilities (CQRS), event sourcing, and asynchronous messaging — so that AI applications integrate cleanly with existing domains and bounded contexts.
• Analyzes business requirements by partnering with key stakeholders across the organization to translate them into technical designs and AI‑enabled solutions.
• Monitors the performance, reliability, and cost of AI applications and underlying infrastructure, and makes recommendations for improvement.
• Defines and develops a service measurement framework for the AI engineering function, covering code quality, delivery velocity, and production reliability.
• Manages team(s) for the AI engineering functional area, including guiding direct reports and peers regarding policies, practices, and procedures. Supports and leads associate resource managers and peers. Manages 3–5 professional and para‑professional level employees on a single or multiple teams. Sets goals and objectives for achievement of operational results. Coaches, reviews, and builds alongside the team.
• Builds and influences team culture across the functional area, cultivating morale and encouraging cross‑functional collaboration. Ensures consistent delivery for all direct reports, teams, and functional areas in sphere of responsibility, and monitors the well‑being of team members, acting as required to support their ongoing success.
• Performs other duties as assigned and modified at manager’s discretion.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Highly‑developed business acuity and acumen
• Hands‑on proficiency in Python and modern software engineering practices, with the ability to review code, guide technical design, build solutions and unblock engineers on complex problems
• Working knowledge of building and operating AI/LLM‑powered applications, including agent orchestration frameworks, prompt and context engineering, and evaluation of model outputs
• Solid understanding of distributed systems concepts, including event‑driven architecture, CQRS, event sourcing, and asynchronous messaging (e.g., Kafka), as well as related domain‑driven design concepts such as bounded contexts and ubiquitous language
• Strong understanding of leadership best practices and company standards
• Excellent working knowledge of computer systems, security, cloud and container platforms (e.g., Kubernetes), databases, and data storage systems
• Strong critical thinking and decision‑making skills
• Excellent project management skills and strong ability to prioritize
• Firm grasp of the software development lifecycle and DevOps/CI‑CD best practices, including automated testing, and peer code review
• Fundamental knowledge of data governance, particularly as it relates to AI/ML systems and responsible use of data
• Mostly self‑directed with minimal to no direct supervision. Expectation of weekly touchpoints
• Proven ability to manage personnel through the accomplishment of business delivery for team. Encourages career growth and personal growth for all team members
• Ability to positively impact peer‑to‑peer interactions, leading by example. Must possess the ability to effectively address any potential dysfunctions
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to effectively communicate with business stakeholders, managers in other functional areas, and directors in own functional area, including translating technical AI concepts for non‑technical audiences
• Ability and willingness to travel locally, regionally, and nationwide up to 15% of the time
• Spoken and written fluency in English
• This job requires use and exercise of independent judgment

Education and Experience Criteria

• A minimum of 6 years of professional work experience in the IT/software engineering industry required
• A minimum of 4 years of hands‑on Python software development experience required
• 1-2 years of experience leading or managing software engineering teams required
• Demonstrated experience designing, building, and operating production software applications at scale
• Experience building or working with AI/LLM‑powered applications or agent‑based systems (e.g., agent orchestration frameworks, retrieval‑augmented generation, prompt engineering)
• Experience with event‑driven or microservices architectures (e.g., CQRS, event sourcing, Kafka)

Pay Range

$118,062 - $168,658 Salary

The posted pay range represents the base hourly rate or base annual full‑time salary for this position. Final compensation will depend on a variety of factors including but not limited to experience, education, geographic location, and other relevant factors. This position may also be eligible for bonuses or commissions.