Senior Lead AI Developer

ZipStaff•San Antonio, TX

17h•Remote

About The Position

ZipStaff is seeking a Senior Lead AI Developer for the Finance Technology AI Enablement team of a leading financial services organization. This remote contract role involves working independently and directly with business leaders and subject matter experts to understand current processes, pain points, and objectives, then designing AI-driven solutions that transform and automate those processes end to end. The role is a hands-on technical leadership position combining architecture and implementation of complex, distributed AI/ML systems with communicating solution designs and roadmaps to business and IT leadership. The developer will build AI, machine learning, automation, semantic-layer, analytics, and financial data-processing capabilities, and provide technical leadership and mentorship within the AI Enablement team. The position is open only to U.S. citizens or Green Card holders.

Requirements

More than 8 years of experience in software, AI, or machine-learning development, including cloud and distributed architecture and platform solutions.
Hands-on experience with Azure, GCP, and AWS.
Experience with Kubernetes and container orchestration.
Experience with event-driven frameworks or platforms and high-volume data processing.
Extensive experience designing and implementing Generative AI and machine-learning solutions.
Experience building complex agentic workflows and automation solutions.
Experience with AI/ML-enabled financial data processing and analytics.
Experience building semantic layers using RAG, Knowledge Graph, and GraphRAG technologies.
Experience enabling NLP-based querying against large, complex relational databases.
Experience with machine-learning analytics use cases such as forecasting, fraud detection, and prediction.
Ability to translate business processes into AI/automation architecture and detailed technical designs.
Ability to work independently with minimal oversight while managing multiple stakeholders.
Excellent communication and presentation skills, including the ability to engage business leaders and large IT audiences.
Ability to work fully remotely.
U.S. citizen or Green Card holder.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience in Finance Technology or financial services.
Track record of leading AI transformation initiatives from concept through production deployment.
Experience mentoring junior developers and driving technical best practices.
Strong background designing and implementing production GenAI, RAG, and agentic workflow solutions for financial use cases.

Responsibilities

Work independently and collaborate with business leaders and subject matter experts to understand processes, pain points, and objectives.
Design and propose AI-enabled solutions to transform and automate existing business processes end to end.
Create automation, AI, and machine learning architecture and detailed technical designs, and lead solution build-out.
Design and implement Generative AI, machine learning, automation, and complex agentic workflow solutions.
Build high-performing semantic layers using RAG, Knowledge Graphs, and GraphRAG.
Enable natural-language querying against large databases with many tables and complex relationships.
Architect and implement AI/ML-enabled financial data processing and analytics solutions.
Develop machine learning analytics capabilities, including forecasting, fraud detection, and prediction models.
Drive an AI-first architecture approach across data-processing and business-process automation initiatives.
Design high-volume processing solutions using event-driven frameworks and platforms.
Present technical concepts, solution designs, and roadmaps to business leaders and large IT audiences.
Provide technical leadership and mentorship within the AI Enablement team.