Director - AI Software Engineering

Job Description

Joining Amex Tech means discovering and shaping your contribution to something big. Here, you can work alongside talented tech teams and build a unique career with the Powerful Backing of American Express. With a range of opportunities to work with the latest technologies, and a commitment to back the broader engineering community through open source, our mission is to power your success. Because Amex Tech is powered by our technology, our culture, and our colleagues.​

​The Technology organization enables and accelerates the company’s growth strategies, delivering global capabilities and services in support of Amex’s customers and colleagues, while maintaining 24/7 servicing and availability to ensure an uninterrupted, high-quality customer experience. Technology provides the foundation for everything we do in the company while driving differentiation through building and leveraging innovative technology and data insights.​

​The Enterprise Data and AI organization unites the data governance, strategy, engineering, and product teams with those responsible for AI engineering, generative AI enablement, and automation product and engineering. This group plays a pivotal role in leveraging data as a core driver of innovation and integrating AI capabilities to transform products, operations, and customer experiences. ​

The EDAI organization also incorporates technology Research & Development and experimentation with emerging capabilities, along with engineering support for Amex Digital Labs. This integration ensures that research breakthroughs seamlessly translate into business impact.

We’re looking for an experienced engineering leader to lead the device wallets platform. This platform is used by tens of millions of cardholders around the world today. We want someone who is technically hands-on, very good communicator, super creative and enjoys solving tough problems. You should be be able to communicate with engineers, product partners and third party entities. You should be able to translate ambiguous business needs into technical requirements and design, convey complex technical challenges to various internal and external stakeholders. You should be obsessive about design and user experience.

You’ll be part of the Digital Payments and Labs Engineering team whose mandate is to develop new experiences and platforms for American Express customers at the crossroads of payments, identity and AI.

This is an opportunity to work in a fast-paced, agile environment with ability to impact real dollars in revenue growth and operational savings. You will operate as a start-up with the stability of a fortune 100 company. You will get a chance to interact with the world’s leading technology companies. Your primary responsibilities will be to lead a team of engineers in developing device wallets enrollment, authentication and lifecycle journeys working with some of the leading tech companies of the world and internal consumers. You’ll work with product managers to help define product direction, provide thought leadership on emerging technologies and create best of breed digital payment experiences that will set the standard for future development. You should be familiar with modern software development methodologies and be able to dive deep and rapidly iterate on ideas. You should be able to influence internal and external partners and be able to influence the outcome.

This is an opportunity to work on the latest mobile technologies and influence how millions of people interact with their cards, their merchants and their money.

Responsibilities

• Perform hands-on architecture, design and drive development of elegant, efficient, secure, scalable solutions.
• Mentor and lead scrum teams working closely with product to drive solutions and delivery.
• Actively participate in solution conversations and influence leading tech companies in the world.
• Eagerly and thoughtfully participate in code reviews
• Drive consistent development practices – tools and common components
• Develop deep understanding of current and potential integrations with other systems and platforms
• Identify opportunities to adopt new technologies to solve existing needs and improve productivity
• Foster a collaborative spirit across multiple teams – believe in doing the right thing for the company.
• Lead adoption of AI development tools for your area.

Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Engineering and 10+ years of equivalent experience in related disciplines
• Proven record of building distributed applications
• Demonstrated ability to solution, design with product and 3rd parties.
• Ability to work collaboratively, selflessly and effectively across functional areas and influence the outcome.
• Ability to effectively disseminate knowledge and mentor other developers thorough code reviews and ad-hoc pair-programming
• Experience building scalable, low latency APIs working in high-performing, iterative development teams
• Through understanding of modern tech stacks, API design, concepts of multi-threaded programming, data structure fundamentals, networking, sql and non-sql DBs.
• Self-motivated and able to thrive in a just-in-time environment
• Good interpersonal and organizational skills
• Understanding of lean principles and their manifestation in efficient software development practices is a plus
• Experience with payments technology is a plus
• Knowledge of iOS or Android is a plus.

Depending on factors such as business unit requirements, the nature of the position, cost and applicable laws, American Express may provide visa sponsorship for certain positions.

About us

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values 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.

About

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.

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.​