Director, Ai Software Engineering(India, China)

Standard Chartered; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 1 666 000 - 2 333 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading global bank seeks a Senior Software Engineering Leader to oversee the engineering backbone of its AI Center of Excellence. You will lead a multidisciplinary team to deliver Python-based AI platforms, steering them from design through to deployment. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in AI engineering, strong programming skills in Python, and the ability to build and manage high-performing teams. Flexible working patterns and a competitive salary are offered, aligning with the bank's Fair Pay Charter.

Benefits

Competitive salary and benefits

Flexible working options

Proactive wellbeing support

Continuous learning culture

Responsibilities

• Lead multidisciplinary teams to develop Python-based AI platforms.
• Define the AI engineering vision, roadmap, and operating model.
• Architect and deliver reusable Python platforms and front-end stacks.
• Ensure non-functional excellence and implement robust CI/CD processes.
• Champion security, risk management, and compliance in AI systems.
• Build and mentor high-performing engineering teams.

Skills

Data science and large-data processing

Data analytics

Programming skills (Python)

Experience with ML / DL frameworks (Scikit-learn, XGBoost, Torch, TensorFlow)

Cloud production deployment

API design and development

Software risk and AI model risk management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computing Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field

Job description

Job Summary

This role could be based in India and China. When you start the application process you will be presented with a drop‑down menu showing all countries; please ensure that you select a country where the role is based.

We seek a senior software engineering leader to build and run the engineering backbone of our AI Center of Excellence (AI CoE). This role owns the end‑to‑end (E2E) delivery of Python‑based AI platforms and products, from design and secure development through model / service deployment, production operations, governance, and lifecycle management in a regulated banking environment. You will lead a multidisciplinary team to turn prototypes into compliant, scalable, reliable systems that create measurable business value.

Leadership & Strategy

Define the AI engineering vision, roadmap, and operating model for the AI CoE and translate business priorities into executable, value‑driven delivery plans.

• Establish standards for AI software engineering excellence: secure SDLC, architecture review, technical design, coding conventions, documentation, and inner‑source practices.
• Drive a product mindset: clear backlogs, fast iteration cycles, and outcome‑based KPIs.

Platform & Architecture (Python Full‑Stack)

• Architect and deliver reusable Python platforms (backend) and front‑end stacks (ReAct / Vue) with reference services for LLM, RAG / GraphRAG, agent orchestration, prompt/version management, evaluation‑as‑code, guardrails, and content moderation.
• Build data / feature / vector stores, retrieval pipelines, Text‑to‑SQL, and tool‑calling services.
• Own API and event‑driven architectures (REST / gRPC / FastAPI; Kafka / PubSub), microservices, and front‑end integration (React / TypeScript / Next.js) for internal users and operational teams.
• Ensure non‑functional excellence: performance, cost, resiliency, observability, and operability (SLOs, error budgets).

E2E Productionization in Banking

• Lead the path from PoC to MVP to production, including change management, release governance, DR / BCP, capacity planning, and runbooks.
• Implement robust CI / CD & GitOps for Python services, models, and data pipelines across hybrid infra (Kubernetes / OpenShift; on‑prem & cloud).
• Partner with model risk and validation to embed evaluation gates (offline / online A/B tests, drift / guardrail monitors) before and after go‑live.

Security, Risk & Compliance

• Ensure data privacy, secrets, access control, and lineage; enforce SAST / DAST / SCA, container / image signing, SBOMs, data contracts, and audit trails.
• Align delivery with bank governance (model risk, data privacy, records retention, third‑party risk) and streamline approvals with evidence‑backed automation.
• Champion safe‑by‑design AI: red‑team​ing, prompt‑injection defenses, eval suites, and incident playbooks.

Operations & SRE for AI

• Stand up AI‑SRE practices: golden signals, OpenTelemetry instrumentation, autoscaling, canary / blue‑green deploys, shadow traffic, and rollback strategies.
• Establish runtime cost / latency optimisation (token budgets, caching, distillation / quantisation, routing).

People & Stakeholder Management

• Build and mentor high‑performing teams (managers, leads, ICs) across backend, data / ML, and front‑end disciplines.
• Partner with COE CPO, data‑science team, CDO, AI platform, security, cloud, data platform, and business lines to unblock delivery; manage vendors / open‑source responsibly.

Skills and Experience

• Data science and large‑data processing.
• Data analytics.
• Programming skills (Python).
• Experience with ML / DL frameworks (Scikit‑learn, XGBoost, Torch, TensorFlow).
• Cloud production deployment.
• API design and development.
• Software risk and AI model risk management.

Qualifications

Education: Bachelor’s degree (or above) in Computer Science, Computing Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field.

Languages: English.

What We Offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial, and social wellbeing. Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance – with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.

Time‑off includes annual leave, parental / maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday (combined to 30 days minimum).

Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.

Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market‑leading digital wellbeing platform, resilience and other human‑skills courses, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first‑aiders and self‑help toolkits.

A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and up‑skill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.

Our Values – Together We

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do.
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well and not so well.
• Are better together – we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term.