Director/Senior Manager - AI Engineering

FICO (NYSE: FICO) is a leading global analytics software company, helping businesses in 100+ countries make better decisions. Join our world-class team today and fulfill your career potential!

The Opportunity

"As a Director for our new AI Engineering team, you will spearhead innovation and strategic growth across FICO’s advanced analytics platform. As a key leader in our Generative AI team, you will drive the application of cutting-edge language models and AI technologies to enhance fraud detection pipeline, automate decision processes, streamline workflows, and optimize performance. This role is pivotal in setting the technical vision and ensuring the robustness, scalability, and governance of our AI systems. You will have the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on FICO’s platform by infusing it with next-generation AI capabilities and leading a high-performing engineering team in developing transformative AI solutions that solve critical business challenges and propel our platform's capabilities forward." - VP-AI Engineering

What You’ll Contribute

• Develop, lead, and coach, a team of engineers, instilling a spirit of aligned autonomy, clear communication, and commitment to excellence, while fostering a learning culture and actively recruiting top talent.

• Collaborate with stakeholders and product managers to understand business priorities and translate them into actionable engineering roadmaps that leverage advanced AI capabilities for high-impact outcomes.

• Drive the design and implementation of cutting-edge AI solutions, including LLM-powered decision automation, fraud detection, and process optimization, positioning FICO’s platform as a market leader.

• Ensure robust, scalable, and compliant architecture of AI systems by defining best practices for model evaluation, governance, and monitoring to maintain accuracy, reliability, and security across applications.

• Oversee the development of sophisticated prompting strategies, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures, and customized fine-tuning and evaluation frameworks to enhance model performance and reliability.

• Implement systems for continuous model monitoring, A/B testing, backtesting, and drift detection to sustain high accuracy and relevance of deployed AI models over time.

• Work closely with UX designers to refine user experience, partner with product teams to prioritize features, and engage with other engineering leaders to align AI capabilities across the platform.

What We’re Seeking

• Proven expertise in building and leading teams in the development of cutting-edge AI solutions, with a focus on Large Language Models (LLMs) and their application to decision automation, fraud detection, and process optimization.

• Strong skills in designing and implementing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures and in developing sophisticated prompt engineering strategies.

• Hands-on experience with advanced model fine-tuning, in-context learning, and evaluation techniques, including the creation of custom evaluation frameworks.

• Deep understanding of machine learning evaluation, backtesting, and A/B testing methodologies to ensure robust and reliable model performance.

• Strong hands-on coding in Python, Go, Java, or similar languages.

• Experience with PyTorch, JAX or similar deep learning frameworks.

• Knowledgeable in model monitoring, drift detection, and governance practices to maintain compliance, security, and operational excellence across AI systems.

• Experience in architecting scalable, high-performance AI and data-driven solutions that meet rigorous production and security standards.

• Demonstrated experience in applying Large Language Models (LLMs) to address real-world challenges effectively.

• Familiarity with compliance and regulatory requirements in AI-driven decisioning environments, with a commitment to responsible AI practices.

• Background in modern software engineering practices and design patterns

• Strong ability to mentor and develop high-performing engineering teams, fostering collaboration across departments to deliver impactful solutions.

• Proven success in fast-paced, high-growth environments, with the agility to adapt and drive results in high-stakes settings.

• Thought leadership in AI and machine learning through publications, patents, or contributions to open-source projects are preferred.

• 10-15 years of industry experience in software, machine learning, or data engineering, with a proven track record of leading complex, large-scale projects and making strategic technical decisions.

• Track record of effective leadership, coaching, and mentoring in dynamic environments, fostering innovation, accountability, and a high-performance team culture.

• Bachelor’s/Master's/PhD in computer science, Data Science, AI, or related discipline

Our Offer to You

• An inclusive culture strongly reflecting our core values:  Act Like an Owner, Delight Our Customers and Earn the Respect of Others.

• The opportunity to make an impact and develop professionally by leveraging your unique strengths and participating in valuable learning experiences.

• Highly competitive compensation, benefits and rewards programs that encourage you to bring your best every day and be recognized for doing so.

• An engaging, people-first work environment offering work/life balance, employee resource groups, and social events to promote interaction and camaraderie.

• The targeted base pay range for this role is: $147,000 to $231,000 with this range reflecting differences in candidate knowledge, skills and experience.

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Why Make a Move to FICO?

At FICO, you can develop your career with a leading organization in one of the fastest-growing fields in technology today – Big Data analytics.  You’ll play a part in our commitment to help businesses use data to improve every choice they make, using advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, optimization, and much more.

FICO makes a real difference in the way businesses operate worldwide:

•    Credit Scoring — FICO® Scores are used by 90 of the top 100 US lenders.

•    Fraud Detection and Security — 4 billion payment cards globally are protected by FICO fraud systems.

•    Lending — 3/4 of US mortgages are approved using the FICO Score.

Global trends toward digital transformation have created tremendous demand for FICO’s solutions, placing us among the world’s top 100 software companies by revenue. We help many of the world’s largest banks, insurers, retailers, telecommunications providers and other firms reach a new level of success. Our success is dependent on really talented people – just like you – who thrive on the collaboration and innovation that’s nurtured by a diverse and inclusive environment. We’ll provide the support you need, while ensuring you have the freedom to develop your skills and grow your career.  Join FICO and help change the way business thinks!

Learn more about how you can fulfil your potential at www.fico.com/Careers

FICO promotes a culture of inclusion and seeks to attract a diverse set of candidates for each job opportunity. We are an equal employment opportunity employer and we’re proud to offer employment and advancement opportunities to all candidates without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. Research has shown that women and candidates from underrepresented communities may not apply for an opportunity if they don’t meet all stated qualifications. While our qualifications are clearly related to role success, each candidate’s profile is unique and strengths in certain skill and/or experience areas can be equally effective. If you believe you have many, but not necessarily all, of the stated qualifications we encourage you to apply.

Information submitted with your application is subject to the FICO Privacy policy at https://www.fico.com/en/privacy-policy