Job Description

Vice President AI/ML Software Engineer

We are seeking a Vice President AI/ML Software Engineer to design and implement agentic AI systems, RAG pipelines, and intelligent document processing services. This is a senior individual contributor role with high autonomy -- you will own significant components of our AI platform, from embedding pipelines and vector retrieval to multi-agent extraction workflows. You will work closely with the SVP lead to translate architectural vision into production code, while mentoring mid-level engineers and driving technical excellence across the team. This role is in New York, NY

What Sets This Role Apart - You build the agent framework, not just configure one -- custom orchestration engine, not a LangChain wrapper - Production AI with real consequences -- extraction accuracy directly impacts financial operations - Full RAG ownership -- from raw OCR bytes through embedding, retrieval, and generation - Evaluation-driven culture -- golden-truth datasets, automated regression, measurable quality gates - Greenfield AI + enterprise integration -- build new AI-native systems that plug into established platforms

In this role, you'll have the opportunity to impact on our organization in the following ways:

AI Systems Development

Implement agentic pipelines: agent loops, tool registries, memory stores, reasoning traces, and self-correction mechanisms - Build and optimize RAG systems end-to-end: - Document ingestion and preprocessing (OCR output, PDFs, structured/unstructured text) - Chunking strategies (section-aware, semantic, sliding window, hierarchical) - Embedding generation and vector index management - Retrieval orchestration: hybrid search, metadata filtering, re-ranking - Context assembly and prompt construction for downstream LLM calls - Develop vectorization pipelines -- embedding model integration, batch processing, incremental index updates, and similarity search tuning - Implement multi-agent coordination patterns: shared blackboards, inter-agent messaging, task decomposition, and consensus mechanisms - Build prompt engineering infrastructure: template management, few-shot example selection, chain-of-thought scaffolding, and output parsing - Develop evaluation harnesses: automated accuracy measurement, retrieval quality metrics, regression detection, and A/B comparison tooling

Platform & Backend Engineering

Build FastAPI services exposing AI capabilities as production APIs (extraction, validation, classification) - Contribute to Java/Spring Boot platform services where AI integrates with business workflow - Design and maintain database schemas for AI metadata: audit trails, pipeline runs, memory entries, knowledge graphs - Implement content policy enforcement and data governance controls within AI pipelines

Mentorship & Collaboration

Mentor 2-3 mid-level engineers on AI engineering practices - Participate in architecture reviews and design sessions - Document patterns, decisions, and runbooks for AI system operation - Collaborate with product and business stakeholders to translate requirements into technical solutions

To be successful in this role, we're seeking the following:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field. - Advanced degree preferred. 6+ years of professional software engineering experience - 2+ years building production AI/ML systems (not just notebooks/prototypes. Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to manage complex data processes. - Excellent collaboration and communication skills to work effectively with cross-functional teams. )

Strong RAG expertise: Embedding models (OpenAI, sentence-transformers, Cohere, or similar) - Vector databases (FAISS, Pinecone, Weaviate, Chroma, pgvector, or similar) - Chunking and retrieval optimization - Context window management and prompt assembly

Agentic AI experience: Agent orchestration (custom frameworks, LangGraph, or similar) - Tool-use patterns, function calling, structured output parsing - Memory and state management for multi-turn agent interactions - Python proficiency (3.11+): FastAPI, async patterns, Pydantic, Poetry, pytest - LLM integration: prompt engineering, token management, streaming, error handling, rate limiting - NLP & document processing: OCR post-processing, text segmentation, entity extraction - Testing rigor: unit tests, integration tests, golden-truth validation, retrieval metric evaluation - API design: RESTful services, OpenAPI specifications, versioning strategies

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with knowledge graph construction from unstructured text - Familiarity with code AI concepts: code generation, automated testing, AI-assisted refactoring - Java/Spring Boot experience for cross-stack contribution - Angular/TypeScript for full-stack context - Experience with model evaluation: F1 scores, precision/recall for extraction, MRR/NDCG for retrieval - Exposure to fine-tuning or prompt optimization techniques - Understanding of graph RAG or hybrid retrieval architectures - Capital markets or financial services domain exposure - Experience with enterprise deployment: Docker, CI/CD, artifact repositories

Technology Stack

AI/Agentic: Multi-agent pipelines, tool-use, autonomous extraction, reasoning loops

RAG: Embedding models, vector stores, hybrid search, chunking, re-ranking

LLM: Azure OpenAI, GPT-4o, structured outputs, function calling

Python: Python 3.12/3.13, FastAPI, Poetry, Pydantic, Gunicorn/Uvicorn

Java: Java 21, Spring Boot 3.x (contributory)

NLP/OCR: Azure Document Intelligence, NLTK, document graph parsing

Database: Oracle, PostgreSQL, vector databases

Infrastructure: Docker, GitLab CI/CD

Testing: Pytest, golden-truth validation, retrieval metrics, evaluation harnesses

Our Benefits and Rewards:

BNY offers highly competitive compensation, benefits, and wellbeing programs rooted in a strong culture of excellence and our pay-for-performance philosophy. We provide access to flexible global resources and tools for your life's journey. Focus on your health, foster your personal resilience, and reach your financial goals as a valued member of our team, along with generous paid leaves, including paid volunteer time, that can support you and your family through moments that matter.