Staff AI Engineer - Enterprise Architecture

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,

explainability, 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.

The

Role

As a Staff Software Engineer – Agentic AI, you will operate as a senior

individual contributor within Amex Technology, helping define how agentic AI

systems are designed, built, and operated across the company.

You will work at the intersection of agentic system architecture and hands-on

execution: designing core frameworks, writing production code, reviewing

critical designs, and guiding teams through complex technical decisions. This

role does not include people management; your impact comes from technical

leadership, sound judgment, and the ability to turn ambiguity into reliable,

scalable agentic systems.

You will work closely with Product and UX partners to shape a shared vision for

agentic AI experiences. While product teams own prioritization, Staff engineers

are expected to actively influence what gets built and how agentic systems come

together across teams.

We are primarily looking for senior individual contributors; however, as the

team grows, you will take on increasing responsibility for technical leadership

and people development within the agentic AI space. Mentoring, developing and

managing direct reports may be in scope for some of our opportunities.

RESPONSIBILITIES

What You’ll Do

• * Drive technical direction for agentic AI initiatives, influencing
• architecture patterns, autonomy boundaries, and system design.
• * Design, build, and operate production-grade agentic AI systems used across
• multiple products.
• * Own and evolve shared agentic AI capabilities, including:
• * Agent frameworks and orchestration layers
• * Planning, tool use, and memory strategies
• * Retrieval and grounding (RAG) pipelines
• * LLM infrastructure, inference, and model gateways
• * Evaluation, observability, and safety tooling for autonomous systems
• * Lead technical design reviews and help teams navigate tradeoffs involving
• autonomy, safety, reliability, scalability, and cost.
• * Partner across teams to deliver complex, cross-cutting agentic AI
• initiatives from concept to production.
• * Evaluate emerging models, techniques, and agentic patterns and translate
• them into practical, enterprise-ready improvements.
• * Mentor senior engineers and raise the technical bar for agentic AI
• development through example and influence.
• Core engineering stack
• * Languages: Python, Go, TypeScript
• * APIs and RPC: REST, gRPC (and in some areas tRPC)
• * Cloud and infrastructure: AWS and/or GCP, Kubernetes
• * Distributed systems: event-driven architectures, including Kafka
• Agentic AI and ML
• * Integration of commercial and open-source LLMs into agentic workflows
• * Agent and orchestration frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic
• Kernel, or CrewAI, with strong judgment about when to use frameworks versus
• building lighter-weight primitives
• * Model-level work using PyTorch and the Hugging Face ecosystem (embeddings,
• fine-tuning, inference tooling), with some exposure to TensorFlow
• * Strong schema, validation, and state management practices using tools such
• as Pydantic (Python) and Zod (TypeScript)
• * Across all systems, we emphasize evaluation, observability, safety, and
• reliability, reflecting the responsibility of deploying autonomous AI in a
• regulated, customer-facing environment.
• QUALIFICATIONS
• * +10 years of software engineering expereince, including deep, hands-on
• experience delivering agentic or LLM-powered systems to production
• * Proven ownership of complex, cross-cutting agentic systems spanning multiple
• teams or products. +10 years of software engineering expereince, including
• deep, hands-on experience delivering agentic or LLM-powered systems to
• production
• * Strong engineering fundamentals across backend systems, APIs, data pipelines,
• and cloud infrastructure.
• * Deep experience across the agentic AI stack, including planning, tool use,
• memory, and evaluation.
• * Fluency with AI-assisted and agentic development workflows.
• * Comfort operating in ambiguous problem spaces and translating them into
• shipped, reliable autonomous systems.
• * Ability to influence technical direction and align teams without formal
• authority.
• * Experience in worflow engines, async processing, queues, and streaming
• systems

Preferred Qualifications

• * Experience building agentic systems in fintech or other regulated industries.
• * Experience as a founding engineer or early technical leader in AI-driven
• products.
• * Demonstrated success delivering technically complex autonomous systems that
• customers actively rely on.
• * Meaningful contributions to open-source AI or agentic frameworks.
• * Familiarity with fine-tuning, model optimization and inference pipelines is a
• plus
• At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of
• innovation, shared values
• [https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/company/who-we-are/]and Leadership
• Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and
• colleagues. From delivering differentiated products to providing world-class
• customer service, we operate with a strong risk mindset, ensuring we continue to
• uphold our brand promise of trust, security, and service.
• As part of Team Amex, you’ll experience our 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.
• 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
• [https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/colleagues/benefits].
• American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions
• without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender
• identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status, age, or any other
• status protected by law. American Express will consider for employment all
• qualified applicants, including those with arrest or conviction records, in
• accordance with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including
• the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for
• Employers, and the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring
• Ordinance. For positions covered by federal and/or state banking regulations,
• American Express will comply with such regulations as it relates to the
• consideration of applicants with criminal convictions.
• We back our colleagues with the support they need to thrive, professionally and
• personally. That's why we have Amex Flex, our enterprise working model that
• provides greater flexibility to colleagues while ensuring we preserve the
• important aspects of our unique in-person culture. Depending on role and
• business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model
• (combination of in-office and virtual days) or fully virtually.
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• 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.