Lead Machine Learning / AI Engineer - Fixed Income Fund - New York - Up to $700k TC

About

A market‑leading trading firm is hiring a Lead ML / AI Engineer to build and own its enterprise AI engineering practice. This fund has recently launched a board-approved AI program focused on accelerating operational efficiency and building towards longer-term innovation. The team is small but well supported, and they’re looking for an experienced ML/AI Engineer to help move key initiatives from concept to production.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and deploy practical AI/ML solutions within Microsoft Azure environments (Databricks experience preferred).
• Take ownership of proof-of-concept delivery, from design through production-scale rollout.
• Establish and enforce sound AI governance practices — from training and monitoring to platform management.
• Evaluate and select appropriate models and tools for different business problems, including some fine-tuning where required.
• Collaborate with external AI accelerator partners, ensuring projects deliver measurable business value.
• Work closely with technology and business teams to translate operational challenges into engineered solutions.

Experience and Skills

• Strong engineering background with a focus on Azure architecture and machine learning deployment.
• Track record of taking POC work through to live production environments.
• Practical understanding of AI governance and how to structure it effectively.
• Solid grasp of enterprise data platforms; AWS experience useful but not essential.
• Comfortable engaging with business stakeholders, framing realistic technical solutions.
• Background in finance or exposure to fixed-income workflows beneficial.

The Environment

The role is part of a newly formed enterprise AI team reporting to the Head of Enterprise Data. It’s a flat structure—currently two to three engineers—with scope to expand if the program continues to deliver. The emphasis is on hands-on engineering and architectural work rather than data science research.

What They’re Looking For

• 10+ years in software, data or AI/ML engineering, including 5+ years in a senior leadership role.
• Proven track record building and scaling AI or advanced analytics platforms in an enterprise setting, ideally with some exposure to financial or risk‑sensitive domains.
• Deep understanding of modern AI architectures: model serving, orchestration, monitoring and lifecycle management.
• Demonstrated ability to translate business strategy into technical execution, influence senior stakeholders and prioritise high‑impact use cases.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams (platform, ML, application) and setting engineering standards.
• Excellent communication skills, able to explain complex technical concepts in clear business language to senior non‑technical stakeholders.
• Preferred: experience in regulated or risk‑sensitive environments, exposure to AI governance, familiarity with cloud‑native AI platforms and modern data ecosystems, and prior experience standing up a new engineering function or centre of excellence.