AI/ML Platform Engineer – Senior Specialist

American Century Investments • Kansas City, MO

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

American Century Investments® is a leading global asset manager with over 65 years of experience helping a broad base of clients achieve their financial goals. Our expertise spans global equities and fixed income, multi-asset strategies, ETFs, and private investments. Privately controlled and independent, we focus solely on investment management. But there’s an unexpected side to us, too. We direct 40% of our dividends every year—over $2 billion since 2000—to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. Our ongoing financial support drives the Institute’s breakthrough work and mission of defeating life-threatening diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. So, the better we do for our clients, the more we can do for everyone. All 1,400 of us across the globe are inspired every day by the unique difference our hard work can make in so many lives. It shows in the curiosity we bring to every initiative, the deep relationships we build with our clients, and the way we treat each other in the hallway. If you’re excited to learn more about us, we can’t wait to learn more about you. Role Summary The AI/ML Platform Engineer – Senior Specialist is a senior individual contributor who sets technical direction for the enterprise AI platform while remaining hands-on. This role is focused on enablement at scale: building durable platform capabilities, defining standards, consulting with teams, and continuously evolving the platform as AI technologies advance. Rather than delivering AI applications, you enable many teams to deliver AI safely and effectively through shared services, guardrails, and expertise. This role reports to the Director, AI and ML Enablement - Enterprise Data. This hybrid position will be based out of our Kansas City, Missouri office. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship. Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. without visa sponsorship, now or in the future.

Requirements

• 5+ years of software engineering experience with complex, distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in Python and platform/service engineering.
• Strong experience operating AI systems in cloud environments (platform agnostic).
• Advanced understanding of ML and LLM evaluation, observability, and iteration.
• Proven ability to influence and lead through technical expertise as an IC.
• Strong learning mindset in a rapidly evolving AI space.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve enterprise AI platform architecture
• Architect and deliver high leverage platform capabilities, including: model, prompt, and agent lifecycle management, evaluation frameworks (offline, online, and human feedback), observability standards for AI systems, and r eusable RAG and agentic orchestration patterns.
• Ensure platform components are modular, extensible, and broadly applicable.
• Act as a senior technical advisor to teams adopting AI.
• Lead design and usage reviews to ensure proper application of AI techniques.
• Influence outcomes through standards, reference implementations, and guidance rather than direct ownership of use cases.
• Evaluate and integrate AI capabilities across ecosystems: predictive ML platforms (e.g. SageMaker), LLM platforms (e.g. Amazon Bedrock, open source), agentic frameworks and orchestration tooling.
• Maintain a balanced approach between managed services and open tooling.
• Define enterprise evaluation strategy, including: regression testing for models, prompts, and agents , online quality and behavior signals, structured human and end user feedback loops.
• Enable teams to refine AI systems through measurable changes to hyperparameters, features, prompts, and retrieval configurations.
• Continuously research new AI products, services, and frameworks.
• Run structured evaluations and POCs with clear success criteria.
• Recommend adoption paths and integrate winning capabilities into the platform.
• Create reference architectures, paved paths, and design guidance.
• Mentor engineers and review platform level designs.
• Clearly communicate complex tradeoffs to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation package with bonus plan
• Generous PTO and competitive benefits
• 401k with 5% company match plus annual performance-based discretionary contribution
• Tuition reimbursement, formal mentorship program, live and online learning

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed