Job Description

Lead AI Engineer – Financial Services | $200,000–220,000 + Bonus + Benefits

Location: New York, NY (REMOTE)

Industry: Financial Services

Harnham is proud to partner with a dynamic and fast-growing financial services firm which works directly with people to help along their financial journey. They are looking to hire their first Lead AI Engineer , someone passionate about building innovative machine learning solutions and driving thoughtful AI & LLM initiatives at an enterprise level.

This is a unique opportunity to take a hands-on leadership role, building machine learning and LLM capabilities, while shaping a team and strategy that supports long-term innovation and responsible AI use.

THE ROLE

As Lead AI Engineer, you will:

• Partner closely with engineering and business teams to design and deliver machine learning solutions that address complex challenges.
• Build and deploy ML and LLM models that support key initiatives in chatbot, voicebot and call center agents.
• Lead development of NLP applications such as text classification, summarization, and information extraction to support customer engagement and insights.
• Help define meaningful performance metrics (KPIs) for AI solutions and foster an environment of transparency and learning.
• Contribute to a culture of innovation by mentoring others, sharing knowledge, and laying the groundwork for a growing AI team.

YOUR SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

We’re looking for someone with:

• 5+ years of experience in applied data science, machine learning, or related AI fields. 2+ most recent years using LLM / RAG technologies.
• A degree in a STEM or quantitative field such as Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or Statistics.
• A strong track record of translating technical work into business value, particularly with cross-functional or non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience leading projects end-to-end, with mentorship or team-building experience.
• Proficiency in Python and familiarity with LLM tools like LangChain, Hugging Face, Llama.
• Exposure to cloud platforms (AWS preferred, but not required) and data visualization tools.
• Comfort and familiarity working in fast-paced environments like hyper-growth startups is a plus.

THE BENEFITS

• Competitive salary range of $200,000–220,000
• Performance-based bonus
• Comprehensive health and wellness benefits
• Better than market average retirement match
• Opportunity to build a strategic AI function from the ground up in a highly respected firm
• Supportive, forward-thinking leadership team invested in responsible innovation

HOW TO APPLY

If you’re excited about building impactful AI solutions and leading with curiosity, care, and purpose, we’d love to hear from you.

Please submit your résumé to Tim Jonas using the "Apply" link on this page.

Keywords:

AI Engineering | Machine Learning | NLP | LLM | Large Language Models | Financial Services | Responsible AI | Python | Cloud | Data Science | Llama | Leadership | Agents | Cross-functional Collaboration | Team Management | LangChain | Hugging Face | Chatbots | Voicebots

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