Application Engineering Technical Lead - II

Vanguard•Malvern, PA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Application Engineering Technical Lead - II shapes how AI-powered experiences are built, governed, and scaled across Workplace Technology. The role sets technical direction for the team's conversational AI orchestration platform and surrounding infrastructure, including agent orchestration and agent-to-agent integration, conversation history and compliance retention pipelines, model governance and observability, knowledge management and retrieval systems, and model access patterns across providers and model sizes. It leads technical evaluations and proofs of concept for new AI-powered use cases, assessing feasibility, implementation patterns, risks, and potential for reuse before wider adoption. The role provides expert technical leadership for the orchestration platform, knowledge management capabilities, and model governance and observability practices. It leads complex development, design, implementation, and architecture specification work; recommends development options; and approves technical designs and solutions. It ensures deliverables are viable, secure, testable, and compliant, resolves complex technical issues, supports root cause analysis, and helps prevent recurring problems. The lead communicates project issues, risks, and implications to stakeholders and influences technical direction when evaluating changes to the platform. The position maintains current working knowledge of AI-amplified PDLC, agent orchestration, model evaluation, observability, and emerging model access patterns. It mentors engineers, identifies training needs, and drives adoption of technical standards. The role reviews and approves architecture documentation and diagrams, defines standards and processes for agent onboarding, knowledge ingestion, and conversation compliance, and identifies opportunities to improve quality across the team's platforms. It participates in design, code, and test inspections throughout the product life cycle, serves as a technical consultant at project meetings, presents technical status and issues at milestone reviews, and ensures work complies with applicable IT, information security, compliance, and governance requirements. Other duties and special projects may be assigned. Vanguard uses a hybrid working model for the majority of crew members, combining flexibility with in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position.

Requirements

Minimum of eight years of related work experience, including at least five years of development experience.
Undergraduate degree or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
Hands-on experience with agent orchestration or conversational AI platforms, such as agent-to-agent (A2A) protocols.
Experience with cloud-native service architecture.
Experience with knowledge management, RAG, or semantic search systems.
Experience with LLM observability and evaluation tooling, such as Arize or comparable tools.
Exposure to multiple model providers and model access pattern design.
Knowledge of AI-amplified PDLC practices.
Hands-on experience with languages and tools such as Python, TypeScript, GitHub Copilot, Claude, or comparable AI engineering tools.
Strong technical judgment, comfort operating in ambiguity, ability to influence without direct authority, and commitment to engineering excellence, responsible AI practices, and continuous learning are preferred attributes.
Must be able to work without visa sponsorship; Vanguard is not offering sponsorship for this position.

Nice To Haves

Graduate degree.
Strong technical judgment, comfort operating in ambiguity, ability to influence without direct authority, and a demonstrated commitment to engineering excellence, responsible AI practices, and continuous learning.

Responsibilities

Provide expert-level technical leadership for the team's orchestration platform, knowledge management capabilities, and model governance and observability practices.
Lead complex development, design, implementation, and architecture specification activities; recommend development options; and approve technical designs and solutions.
Ensure deliverables are viable, secure, testable, and compliant, particularly for compliance-sensitive pipelines.
Resolve complex technical issues, support root cause analysis, and help prevent recurring technology problems.
Communicate project issues, risks, and implications to key stakeholders; evaluate change-request impacts on the orchestration platform and influence technical direction.
Maintain current working knowledge of AI-amplified PDLC methodology, agent orchestration architecture, model evaluation, observability practices, and emerging model access patterns.
Mentor engineers, identify training needs, and drive adoption of new technical standards across the team.
Review and approve architecture documentation and diagrams for the orchestration platform and shared AI infrastructure.
Define technical standards and processes, including patterns for agent onboarding, knowledge ingestion, and conversation compliance.
Identify opportunities for continuous quality improvement of technical standards, methodologies, and technologies across the team's platforms.
Participate in design, code, and test inspections throughout the product life cycle.
Serve as a technical consultant at project meetings and present technical status and issues at milestone reviews.
Comply with IT and information security policies and procedures, and ensure deliverables meet applicable security, compliance, and governance requirements.
Participate in special projects and perform other duties as assigned.
Lead technical evaluation and proof-of-concept work for new AI-powered use cases, assessing feasibility, implementation patterns, risks, and reuse potential.