AI Engineer II - Enterprise Architecture

About the Role

As an AI Engineer – Agentic AI, you will be a hands-on builder contributing to the development of production agentic AI systems that operate on real financial data and serve real customers.

You will work alongside experienced engineers, product managers, and designers to design, build, and ship AI-powered features, while learning how to operate within a regulated, customer-facing environment. This role offers strong mentorship and opportunities to grow your technical depth in LLMs, agentic systems, and production AI engineering.

This is not a research-only role. You will write production code, contribute to system design discussions, and help operate what you build after launch, with support and guidance from more senior engineers.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the design and implementation of LLM-powered and agentic product features.
• Build and extend agentic AI workflows that reason over context, call tools, and perform actions under guidance from senior engineers.
• Help implement and maintain retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines over financial data, with an emphasis on correctness and safety.
• Contribute to shared AI infrastructure such as LLM services, orchestration components, and evaluation or monitoring tooling.
• Participate in operating AI systems in production, including monitoring, debugging, and improving reliability and performance.
• Collaborate closely with product and design partners, learning to translate customer needs into technical solutions.

Technical Environment

Core engineering stack

• Languages: Python, Go, TypeScript
• Cloud and infrastructure: AWS and/or GCP, Kubernetes
• APIs and services: REST, gRPC
• Distributed systems: event-driven architectures, including Kafka

Agentic AI and ML

• Commercial and open-source LLMs integrated into agentic workflows
• Tooling for agent orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation, vector storage, and evaluation
• Schema validation and structured data handling

AI-assisted development

• Use of AI-assisted and agentic development tools for design, implementation, testing, debugging, and refactoring
• Learning how to apply these tools responsibly while maintaining production-quality standards

All systems are built to meet high standards for reliability, security, and auditability, reflecting the responsibility of deploying autonomous AI in a financial services environment.

Qualifications

Required

• 2+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Some hands-on experience building or contributing to AI-powered features, LLM-based applications, or applied ML systems (professional or project-based).
• Solid engineering fundamentals in at least one backend language (Python, Go, or TypeScript).
• Familiarity with APIs, basic cloud concepts, and modern development practices.
• Interest in agentic AI systems, autonomy, and AI-assisted development workflows.
• Willingness to learn, take feedback, and grow technical ownership over time.
• Comfort working in collaborative, cross-functional teams.
• A strong customer mindset and curiosity about real-world problem solving.

Preferred

• Exposure to LLM tooling, prompt engineering, RAG, or agent frameworks through work, coursework, or personal projects.
• Internship or early-career experience in fintech or other regulated environments.
• Contributions to open-source projects, hackathons, or side projects related to AI or developer tooling.

About American Express

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values, and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. From delivering differentiated products to providing world-class customer service, we operate with a strong risk mindset, ensuring we continue to uphold our brand promise of trust, security, and service.

As part of Team Amex, you'll experience our powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career. Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

Benefits

• Competitive base salaries
• Bonus incentives
• 6% Company Match on retirement savings plan
• Free financial coaching and financial well-being support
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need
• 20+ weeks paid parental leave for all parents, regardless of gender, offered for pregnancy, adoption or surrogacy
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location)
• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program
• Career development and training opportunities

Equal Opportunity

American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected by law. American Express will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest or conviction records, in accordance with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the City of Los Angeles' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. For positions covered by federal and/or state banking regulations, American Express will comply with such regulations as it relates to the consideration of applicants with criminal convictions.

Work Model

Depending on role and business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model (combination of in-office and virtual days) or fully virtually.