American Express

Sr AI Engineer I

American Express$150K — $180K *
Finance & Insurance
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 6+ years of software engineering experience, especially with LLMs or applied ML systems.
  • Proven track record of delivering AI-powered or agentic systems used by real customers.
  • Strong fundamentals in backend systems, APIs, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructures.
  • Hands-on expertise with modern LLM tooling and agentic architectures.
  • Fluency in AI-assisted development workflows, ensuring high production standards.
  • Demonstrated ownership and sound technical judgment in projects.

Responsibilities

  • Design, build, and launch LLM-powered and agentic features to improve customer financial management.
  • Create agentic AI systems that reason, act, and handle failures effectively.
  • Architect production-grade data pipelines emphasizing correctness and safety.
  • Contribute to AI infrastructure, enhancing agentic development at Amex.
  • Own the reliability and performance of the systems post-launch.
  • Collaborate closely with product and design to focus on customer outcomes.

Benefits

  • Competitive base salaries and bonus incentives.
  • 6% company match on retirement savings plan.
  • Free financial coaching and wellness support.
  • Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits.
  • Flexible working model options including hybrid, onsite, or virtual arrangements.
  • Generous paid parental leave of 20+ weeks for all parents, regardless of gender.
  • Access to onsite wellness centers staffed with professionals (location-dependent).
  • Confidential counseling support through the Healthy Minds program.
  • Opportunities for career development and training.
Full Job Description
Job Description

As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career. Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

Joining Amex Tech means discovering and shaping your contribution to something big. Here, you can work alongside talented tech teams and build a unique career with the Powerful Backing of American Express. With a range of opportunities to work with the latest technologies, and a commitment to back the broader engineering community through open source, our mission is to power your success. Because Amex Tech is powered by our technology, our culture, and our colleagues.

The Technology organization enables and accelerates the company's growth strategies, delivering global capabilities and services in support of Amex's customers and colleagues, while maintaining 24/7 servicing and availability to ensure an uninterrupted, high-quality customer experience. Technology provides the foundation for everything we do in the company while driving differentiation through building and leveraging innovative technology and data insights.

At American Express, AI is reshaping the future of commerce and redefining the experiences our commercial customers and card members expect. Within Amex Technology, we are building platforms, products, and governance that enable agentic AI systems to operate responsibly and at scale across the enterprise.

Our focus is on agentic AI development: designing intelligent, adaptive systems that can plan, reason, and act across complex workflows with appropriate levels of autonomy. These systems power autonomous workflows, decision support, and customer-facing experiences-while meeting the high standards for security, explaination ability, reliability, and compliance required in financial services.

We partner closely with product, design, and business teams to deliver agentic capabilities that reduce operational friction, improve decision-making, and transform how customers interact, transact, and grow.

Responsibilities

As a Senior AI Engineer I - Agentic AI, you will be a core builder responsible for turning complex, ambiguous problems into production-grade agentic systems that operate on real financial data, serve real customers, and meet real regulatory requirements.

You will work end to end: shaping solutions with product and design, building and shipping production code, and owning what you deliver after launch. The scope of this role spans customer-facing LLM-powered features, agentic systems that automate financial workflows, and internal AI capabilities that enable other engineers to build with AI safely and efficiently.

This is not a research-only role. We are looking for engineers who are comfortable operating with autonomy, exercising sound judgment, and pushing the technical envelope within the realities of a regulated financial environment.

What You'll Do

Design, build, and ship LLM-powered and agentic product features that change how customers manage their finances.

Build agentic AI systems that reason over context, invoke tools, take real actions, and recover gracefully from failure.

Architect and implement production-grade RAG pipelines over sensitive financial data, with strict requirements for correctness, auditability, and safety.

Contribute to shared AI infrastructure, including LLM services, agent orchestration frameworks, and evaluation and monitoring tooling, that scales agentic development across Amex Technology.

Own the systems you build in production, including reliability, latency, cost, and failure modes.

Work closely with product and design partners; engineers in this role are expected to think in terms of customer outcomes, not just technical execution.

Technical Environment

We don't hire to a narrow checklist, but candidates should be comfortable operating in a modern, enterprise-scale environment with a strong emphasis on agentic AI.

Core engineering stack

Languages: Python, Go, TypeScript

Cloud and infrastructure: AWS and/or GCP, Kubernetes

APIs and services: REST, gRPC

Distributed systems: event-driven architectures, including Kafka

Agentic AI and ML

Commercial and open-source LLMs integrated into agentic workflows

Tooling for agent orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation, vector storage, and evaluation

Strong schema, validation, and state management practices

AI-assisted development

Fluency with AI-assisted and agentic development workflows for design, implementation, testing, debugging, and refactoring

Thoughtful use of these tools while maintaining production-quality engineering standards

All systems are built to meet high standards for reliability, security, and auditability, reflecting the responsibility of deploying autonomous AI in a financial services environment.

Qualifications

6+ years of software engineering experience, including meaningful production experience with LLMs or applied ML systems.

A track record of shipping AI-powered or agentic systems that real users depend on.

Strong engineering fundamentals across backend systems, APIs, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure.

Hands-on experience with modern LLM tooling and agentic patterns and architectures.

Fluency with AI-assisted and agentic development workflows.

Strong sense of ownership and sound technical judgment.

Comfort operating with ambiguity and turning it into shipped reliable product.

A strong product mindset and customer orientation.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience building agentic systems in fintech or other regulated industries.

Experience as a founding engineer or early technical contributor in high-growth environments.

Demonstrated ability to ship technically complex systems in regulated contexts that customers actively rely on.

Meaningful open-source contributions, particularly in AI or developer tooling.

About the Team

We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:

  • Competitive base salaries
  • Bonus incentives
  • 6% Company Match on retirement savings plan
  • Free financial coaching and financial well-being support
  • Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits
  • Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need
  • 20+ weeks paid parental leave for all parents, regardless of gender, offered for pregnancy, adoption or surrogacy
  • Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location)
  • Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program
  • Career development and training opportunities

For a full list of Team Amex benefits, visit our Colleague Benefits Site.

The below represents the expected salary range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining your pay, we'll consider your location, experience, and other job-related factors.

About American Express

Amex provides industrial services to the coatings and linings sector, providing support for commercial, industrial, and maritime projects such as petrochemical, power, and water treatment industries. They offer painting services for steel structures, storage tank linings and coatings, pipelines, floors, and marine vessels such as ships, tugboats, and barges.

American Express Careers

Join the vibrant team at American Express, a global leader in financial services, and be part of a company that values innovation, leadership, and diversity. At American Express, we offer more than just job opportunities; we provide a platform for professional growth and a chance to be part of a culture that is committed to excellence and inclusive growth. Work You’ll Do At American Express, we are dedicated to helping our employees reach their full potential. With a variety of career paths available in areas such as technology, marketing, finance, and customer service, American Express is the perfect place to advance your career. Our team is composed of highly skilled professionals who thrive on innovation and collaboration. Join our team and contribute to a company known for its prestigious history of leadership in the credit card industry. Engage in meaningful work that makes a real impact on our global scale business operations. American Express Leadership and Development Programs We believe in nurturing the leadership skills of our employees with extensive training programs and leadership development opportunities. Our commitment to professional growth is evident in our comprehensive benefits package that supports both personal and professional development. Internship Opportunities Start your career with an internship at American Express and gain valuable industry experience. Our internships offer a chance to develop skills, work on challenging projects, and learn from leaders in the industry. Interns at American Express are considered integral members of the team and are given responsibilities that provide a real insight into their future career paths. Diversity and Inclusion At American Express, diversity and inclusion are at the core of our company culture. We are committed to building a diverse workforce and inclusive environment where every employee feels valued and inspired. We offer diversity training programs that empower our employees to thrive and lead in a global marketplace. Networking and Innovation Our employees enjoy unparalleled opportunities for networking and personal growth through our global connections and innovative projects. American Express encourages a culture of innovation that helps propel our company and your career forward. Career Benefits and Growth American Express is dedicated to the growth of its employees. We offer competitive benefits, including health, retirement plans, and family leave, ensuring that our team members have the support they need to succeed both at work and in their personal lives. Join Our Team Explore the job opportunities and open positions at American Express. We are continuously hiring talented individuals who are passionate about their careers and interested in working for a company that offers a dynamic and supportive environment. Stay Connected Keep up to date with the latest from American Express Careers by following our career blog and signing up for job alert emails. Tailor your subscription to receive updates that match your skills and interests. Discover the exciting and rewarding career opportunities that await at American Express. SEARCH AMERICAN EXPRESS JOBS Whether you are looking for a full-time position, an internship, or a leadership opportunity, American Express offers a path to a rewarding career. Join us and make a difference with your passion, creativity, and drive.
Learn more about American Express
Size
64,000 employees
Market Cap
$108.1 billion
Industry
Net Income
$3.1 billion
Founded
1850
5 Year Trend
+3.5%
Revenue
$37 billion
NASDAQ

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