About the roleFifth Third is building a new team within AI Transformation. We partner directly with colleagues in credit, legal, human capital, finance, technology, risk, and operations to understand the work they do every day and build AI capabilities that make it faster, higher-quality, and less burdensome. We are hiring Directors to lead this effort. The role spans engineering, product, delivery, risk, and executive stakeholder management. You will lead teams that embed with business partners, translate ambiguous operational problems into technical systems, and deliver AI-enabled workflows and agents that are useful, governed, measurable, and production-ready.
What you will do- Lead a team of AI engineers working across one or more bank domains (e.g., legal, risk, HR).
- Partner with senior business leaders to identify high-value knowledge-worker workflows.
- Help teams move from vague AI ideas to scoped, buildable, governed use cases.
- Guide the design and delivery of AI agents, copilots, workflows, tools, and knowledge systems.
- Work closely with business, technology, risk, compliance, legal, information security, and operations partners.
- Establish delivery patterns for safe experimentation, pilots, production releases, measurement, and ongoing support.
- Help define what "good" looks like for AI-enabled work at the bank: evaluation, controls, observability, user adoption, and business impact.
- Coach Principal and Lead AI engineers through ambiguous, cross-functional delivery work.
- Identify repeatable patterns and convert them into reusable assets, frameworks, templates, and playbooks.
- Maintain a practical view of emerging AI capabilities and where they can be responsibly applied inside a regulated financial institution.
What we are looking for- Experience leading technical teams that build software, data products, AI products, automation, or enterprise platforms.
- Strong product judgment and the ability to separate useful AI applications from novelty.
- Ability to work with senior leaders while staying close to the actual work and users.
- Comfort defining structure in new areas.
- Practical understanding of generative AI, LLM applications, agents, RAG, workflow automation, evaluation, and enterprise AI risk.
- Experience working in regulated enterprise environments.
- Ability to coach engineers who need to be both technically strong and deeply user-oriented.
- Clear communication style, especially when translating between business, engineering, and risk stakeholders.
Helpful experience- AI engineering, applied ML, platform engineering, data engineering, product engineering, or enterprise architecture.
- Experience with cloud AI platforms (AWS Bedrock, Microsoft Copilot Studio).
- Building production systems that use APIs, workflow orchestration, knowledge retrieval, identity/access control, monitoring, and evaluation.
- Background in banking, financial services, insurance, healthcare, government, or another regulated industry.
- Experience standing up new teams, new practices, or new operating models.
Position not available for immigration sponsorship #LI-MB1
Director, AI Engineering
At Fifth Third, we understand the importance of recognizing our employees for the role they play in improving the lives of our customers, communities and each other. Our Total Rewards include comprehensive benefits and differentiated compensation offerings to give each employee the opportunity to be their best every day.
The base salary for this position is reflective of the range of salary levels for all roles within this pay grade across the U.S. Individual salaries within this range will vary based on factors such as role, relevant skillset, relevant experience, education and geographic location. In addition to the base salary, this role is eligible to participate in an incentive compensation plan, with any such payment based upon company, line of business and/or individual performance.
Our extensive benefits programs are designed to support the individual needs of our employees and their families, encompassing physical, financial, emotional and social well-being. You can learn more about those programs on our 53.com Careers page at: https://www.53.com/content/fifth-third/en/careers/benefits.html or by consulting with your talent acquisition partner.
LOCATION -- Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
Attention search firms and staffing agencies: do not submit unsolicited resumes for this posting. Fifth Third does not accept resumes from any agency that does not have an active agreement with Fifth Third. Any unsolicited resumes - no matter how they are submitted - will be considered the property of Fifth Third and Fifth Third will not be responsible for any associated fee.
