AI Engineer - Automated Channels Transformation

Fifth Third Bank • Cincinnati, OH

7d

About The Position

The Principal AI Engineer designs and builds artificial intelligence systems that address complex business challenges and deliver measurable value, with a focus on agentic AI. The role functions as a forward-deployed engineer, partnering with product owners, lines of business, engineering, security, risk, and compliance to identify high-impact opportunities and deliver safe, effective agentic AI solutions. The focus is on customer-facing AI, using generative AI predominantly in AWS to improve operational efficiency and customer experience. The engineer develops agents that use reasoning, planning, retrieval, and tools to complete complex tasks; establishes evaluation and documentation practices; monitors production performance; and provides evidence for governance. The role also communicates AI concepts, risks, opportunities, and recommendations to technical teams, business stakeholders, and senior leaders, supporting business goals within the Bank’s risk appetite.

The position designs, builds, tests, and improves generative AI and agentic systems; conducts experiments and analysis to assess prompts, retrieval strategies, workflows, integrations, runtime, accuracy, quality, and return on investment; defines use-case success metrics; and monitors agents in production. It delivers cross-team projects, influences architecture and engineering standards, translates business workflows into defined AI use cases, and collaborates with engineering, data, security, compliance, and risk teams to integrate solutions that meet governance, regulatory, and responsible AI requirements.

The role requires a bachelor's degree in a relevant technical field and at least six years of experience developing software or AI solutions in production environments. Advanced education is preferred but not required. The successful candidate must be willing to relocate to Cincinnati, Ohio. Compensation includes base salary and eligibility for an incentive compensation plan; salary varies based on factors such as skills, experience, education, and location. The company describes its benefits as comprehensive and designed to support employees’ and families’ physical, financial, emotional, and social well-being, but does not list specific benefit programs in the posting.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics, or a related technical field.
• At least 6 years of experience developing software or AI solutions in production environments.
• Strong programming skills in Python, TypeScript, Java, Go, or similar languages used for AI engineering and software development.
• Expertise in generative AI techniques, including context engineering, LLM fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation, evaluation frameworks, model context protocol, loop/graph engineering, skills/open knowledge format, and agentic system design.
• Familiarity with prompt optimization, retrieval tuning, caching, and model selection to improve generative AI performance, latency, cost, and reliability.
• Knowledge of agent frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, Strands, Google ADK, Anthropic SDK, or OpenAI SDK.
• Proficiency with version control systems such as Git/GitHub.
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.
• Experience with containerization and Infrastructure as Code, such as Docker and Terraform.
• Knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and software design principles.
• Curiosity and adaptability to learn new skills, techniques, tools, and frameworks as AI technologies and business needs evolve.
• Clear written and verbal communication, consensus-building, and effective presentation skills.
• Ability to promote knowledge sharing and cross-team collaboration.
• Sound analytical judgment, problem-solving ability, ability to prioritize competing demands, and ability to work independently.
• Ability to work well in Agile environments and with standard business productivity tools.
• Understanding of ethical considerations and responsible practices for AI deployment.
• Must be willing to relocate to Cincinnati, Ohio.

Nice To Haves

• Advanced degree in a relevant field.
• Experience with cloud computing platforms, especially AWS.
• Experience designing observability systems for AI applications.

Responsibilities

• Design and build generative AI and agentic systems that solve business problems and deliver measurable value.
• Develop AI agents that use reasoning, planning, retrieval, and tool integration to complete complex tasks.
• Evaluate AI agents before and after deployment to drive continuous improvement and ensure effectiveness.
• Research, prototype, and apply emerging AI models, agent frameworks, orchestration patterns, and enterprise development practices.
• Design and execute experiments evaluating prompts, retrieval strategies, agent workflows, tool integrations, and user experience.
• Analyze and compare prompts, workflows, and tools across runtime, accuracy, and output quality; report results for governance and quantify return on investment.
• Use supervised and unsupervised learning to understand customer needs on supported channels and inform decisions.
• Define success metrics for AI use cases, such as containment, time to resolution, customer satisfaction, and sentiment.
• Monitor production agent performance, including latency, failure rates, tool-call success, escalation rates, retry behavior, and cost per interaction.
• Produce evidence for AI governance reviews, including evaluation results, control effectiveness, model and tool performance, and risk mitigation outcomes.
• Deliver complex AI projects and cross-team initiatives with limited supervision, ensuring solutions are integrated, scalable, and compliant.
• Serve as a technical authority, influence architectural decisions, and shape engineering standards across products and platforms.
• Partner with product owners and line-of-business teams to understand workflows, identify automation opportunities, and define AI use cases with objectives, constraints, and success criteria.
• Educate technical teams, business stakeholders, and senior leaders on AI concepts, solution designs, recommendations, opportunities, and emerging trends.
• Collaborate with software, cloud, and data engineers and data scientists to integrate AI solutions into existing systems and products.
• Work with compliance, security, and risk teams to meet governance, regulatory, and responsible AI requirements before and after deployment.

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits programs designed to support employees’ and families’ physical, financial, emotional, and social well-being.
• Eligibility to participate in an incentive compensation plan, with payments based on company, line-of-business, and/or individual performance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior