AI Engineer, LLM Principal

About the Role:

The Principal AI Engineer will spearhead efforts to leverage large language models (LLMs) and generative AI (Gen AI) in creating and integrating advanced AI solutions. This role focuses on harnessing LLM and Gen AI capabilities to drive innovation, optimize data processes, and ensure seamless deployment. The ideal candidate will maximize the potential of LLMs and Gen AI within our systems, implement strong safety protocols, and maintain high ethical standards. As a principal, you will collaborate with cross-functional teams, mentor emerging talent, and steer the strategic direction of our initiatives by capitalizing on LLM and Gen AI technologies. Join us to transform our technological landscape through the power of LLMs and Gen AI.

What You Will Do:

Core Technical Responsibilities:

• Design and implement LLM-based solutions, including model fine-tuning, prompt engineering, and integration with existing systems.
• Develop and optimize model training pipelines, focusing on efficiency and performance.
• Create and maintain model evaluation frameworks to assess model performance, bias, and safety.
• Build robust data preprocessing pipelines for training and fine-tuning.
• Implement efficient model deployment strategies and monitoring systems.

Development & Integration:

• Create APIs and services to integrate LLM capabilities into production applications.
• Optimize model inference for production environments, considering latency and cost.
• Develop fallback mechanisms and error handling for AI systems.
• Design and implement caching strategies and vector databases for efficient retrieval.
• Build RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system.
• Lead the design, development, and deployment of AI models and algorithms.

Quality & Safety:

• Implement guardrails and safety measures to prevent misuse and harmful outputs.
• Monitor and mitigate model biases and ethical concerns.
• Develop testing frameworks for model behavior and output quality.
• Ensure compliance with AI governance policies and industry standards.
• Document model limitations and potential risks.
• Ensure the scalability, reliability, and performance of AI systems.

Technical Leadership:

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate AI solutions into products and services.
• Stay current with the latest developments in LLM research and industry best practices.
• Mentor and guide junior AI engineers and data scientists.
• Contribute to technical architecture decisions.
• Drive the strategic direction of AI initiatives within Pathward.
• Other duties as assigned.

What You Will Need:

• Bachelor's degree in information systems or equivalent education and work experience. Master's degree preferred.
• Strong Python programming and software engineering practices
• Experience with ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc.)
• Knowledge of LLM architectures and training methodologies
• Familiarity with prompt engineering and chain-of-thought techniques
• Understanding of ML ops and deployment practices
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)

The responsibilities listed above are not all inclusive and may be changed at any time.

Salary range: $86,259.86 – $159,308.33

The salary range reflects the minimum and maximum target for a new hire in this role. Individual pay within the range will be determined by multiple factors which can include but are not limited to a candidate’s experience, qualifications, skills, and location. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary for your location during the hiring process. Ranges may be modified in the future.
This role is also eligible for an annual performance-based incentive opportunity.  Pathward offers a comprehensive benefits package for eligible employees, including health insurance, 401(k) retirement benefits, life insurance, disability benefits, paid time off, and more.

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