Director and Lead Applied AI Engineering

We're determined to make a difference and are proud to be an insurance company that goes well beyond coverages and policies. Working here means having every opportunity to achieve your goals – and to help others accomplish theirs, too. Join our team as we help shape the future.   

The Hartford seeks energetic and passionate Director and Lead Applied AI Engineer to lead AI Operations (AIOps, MLOps, FMOps, LLMOps) practice for the AI Platform team that caters to data science and business teams in enterprise.

Our team has developed industry-leading capabilities, driving streamlined processes and smarter decision making. We support a variety of functions including Actuarial, Product, Underwriting and Sales. As a Director and Lead Machine Learning Engineer within the AIOps organization, you will play a significant role in ensure build reliable, reproducible software applications and standardization of the AIOps pipeline on the cloud.

This role will have a Hybrid work schedule, with the expectation of working in an office (Columbus, OH, Chicago, IL, Hartford, CT or Charlotte, NC) 3 days a week (Tuesday through Thursday).

We are looking for talent who embraces our core values:

• We build solutions, not models. We are thoughtful in supporting the end-to-end business problem, with an eye to systems design.
• We are trusted and transparent. We collaborate tightly with our partners and are mindful of their capacity to absorb change.
• We provide assets that are safe to buy. Our products are delivered with a full monitoring solution to ensure our products continue to deliver as expected.
• We will earn the right to influence. With humble confidence, we listen carefully to learn from our customers and become partners in problem solving.
• We are practical and evolutional. We first deliver a minimally viable product and over time expand its sophistication based on feedback.

You will be responsible for:

• Hands-on role, actively working with teams and leveraging technical experience.
• Supporting the development of core AI platform capabilities.
• Building and managing a world-class high-performance platform engineering team, fostering innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence.
• Applying very strong engineering expertise in AI, ML, and modern data technologies to enhance platform functionality.
• Leading the design, development, and scaling of large platforms with a focus on reliability, scalability, and security.
• Drive the development and implementation of Gen AI and AI solutions on the AI platform using platform capabilities
• Providing mentorship and career growth opportunities for technical teams as an inspirational people leader.
• Demonstrating strong behavioral traits of enterprise-level leadership, effectively influencing and attuned to the needs of teams and stakeholders, acting as a go-getter, and driving execution.
• Defining and executing the vision and roadmap for AI solutions on the platform that align with the organization's strategic goals and customer needs.

Candidate must be authorized to work in the US without company sponsorship. The company will not support the STEM OPT I-983 Training Plan endorsement for this position.

Qualifications:

• 4 or more years of experience in leading AI, ML, or applied engineering teams, with a strong track record of building AI-driven solutions.
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms such as Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure.
• Strong understanding of GenAI, machine learning, and related technologies along with business acumen. 
• Ability to collaborate and partner with business leaders and IT/Data Science teams.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to guide and mentor engineering teams.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to guide and mentor engineering teams.
• Strong leadership and influencing skills at the senior management level.
• Experience leading and managing teams focused on AI-driven use case development.
• Experience focused on AI-driven use case development.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrate a willingness to challenge the status quo and drive continuous improvements.

Preferred Skills:

• Development experience for WebService API with AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure suite of tools and their offerings for AI / GenAI.
• Strong proficiency in embeddings, ANN/KNN, vector stores, quantization, database optimization, and performance tuning.
• Proficiency in customization techniques across various stages of the RAG pipeline, including model fine-tuning, retrieval re-ranking, Hybrid search and multimodal RAG plus.
• Experience building applications using RAG and Summarization patterns, prompt management and Agentic Framework.
• Experience in building Agentic system using frameworks like LangGraph and CrewAI is a plus.
• Basic understanding of ML frameworks, i.e., TensorFlow, Anaconda, Scikit-Learn, SageMaker, Agentic AI, and Vertex AI.
• Experience working with Docker, Kubernetes and EC2 environment.
• Experience enabling services such as Amazon Q, MSFT Copilot and similar services to enterprise.
• Familiarity with Python Flask or Spring Boot.

Compensation

The listed annualized base pay range is primarily based on analysis of similar positions in the external market. Actual base pay could vary and may be above or below the listed range based on factors including but not limited to performance, proficiency and demonstration of competencies required for the role. The base pay is just one component of The Hartford's total compensation package for employees. Other rewards may include short-term or annual bonuses, long-term incentives, and on-the-spot recognition. The annualized base pay range for this role is:

Equal Opportunity Employer/Sex/Race/Color/Veterans/Disability/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity or Expression/Religion/Age

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