Manager, AI/ML

We provide technology that community financial institutions use to manage risk and drive growth. Our solutions automate key processes – from anti-money laundering to fraud detection to CECL readiness to lending workflows – empowering our customers by addressing their Enterprise Risk Management needs. This is an exciting opportunity for someone who is not only a master of their craft but also shares our commitment to driving a strong company culture by putting their heart and soul into their work every day. We are seeking a Manager of AI/ML to help lead and grow our AI and ML engineering organization. This role will be instrumental in shaping the technical strategy and architecture for a highly scalable, cloud-based machine learning platform that powers our financial technology solutions, including financial transaction analysis and other mission-critical products.This leader will be responsible for designing and implementing production-grade ML and LLM systems, pipelines, and operational practices, ensuring high availability, security, and performance for financial institutions. They will help build and manage high-performing teams, drive AI/ML innovation, and collaborate closely with cross-functional stakeholders to support business and product objectives. This position will report to the VP, Engineering and can be based in Raleigh, NC, Austin, TX, or remote. What You’ll Do:

• AI/ML Platform & Technical Strategy 
• Define and execute a scalable, resilient AI/ML platform strategy that aligns with business objectives and industry best practices.
•  Architect and drive the adoption of cloud-native AI/ML solutions (AWS preferred), including model training pipelines, LLM orchestration frameworks, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines.
• Lead initiatives around model governance, bias/fairness audits, explainability, and security/compliance (SOC 2, PCI DSS) for production ML and LLM systems.
• Drive automation-first approaches with Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), ML Ops, and LLM Ops platforms to streamline development, deployment, and monitoring.
• Stay ahead of emerging AI trends, including foundation model fine-tuning, model distillation, prompt engineering, LLM caching, and event-driven AI architectures.
• Leadership & Team Development 
• Build and mentor a high-performing AI/ML engineering team, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning.
• Support the scaling and structuring of the ML engineering team to meet growing demands around generative AI, predictive analytics, and real-time decision-making systems.
• Provide strong mentorship to ML and AI engineers, setting clear objectives, technical direction, and career development pathways.
•  Promote a culture of psychological safety, technical excellence, and accountability.
• Execution & Operational Excellence 
• Establish best-in-class ML Ops and LLM Ops practices, including CI/CD for machine learning models, model observability (e.g., drift, hallucination detection), and real-time model evaluation.
• Optimize model training, inference, and monitoring pipelines for performance, cost-efficiency, and scalability.
• Define and track key performance indicators (model accuracy, drift rates, latency, prompt evaluation metrics) to drive continuous improvement.
• Oversee Agile/Scrum processes, ensuring efficient and predictable delivery of AI/ML platform initiatives.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration 
• Partner with Product, Data Science, and Engineering teams to deliver scalable AI/ML solutions, including predictive models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, and LLM-based copilots.
• Work closely with Finance, Compliance, and Risk teams to ensure AI/ML solutions are explainable, fair, secure, and compliant with financial industry regulations.
• Collaborate with Executive Leadership to communicate AI/ML strategy, LLM platform evolution, and business impact.

What You'll Need: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related technical field (Master’s degree or MBA a plus).
• 5+ years of software or ML engineering experience, with at least 2+ years in technical leadership or management roles.
• Strong experience in cloud-based AI/ML architectures (AWS preferred), including scalable ML pipelines, LLM hosting, and serverless AI deployments.
• Hands-on experience building, deploying, and supporting production-grade machine learning models and LLM applications using frameworks such as Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain, OpenAI APIs, or similar.
• Deep familiarity with ML Ops and LLM Ops platforms and practices (e.g., MLflow, SageMaker, Vertex AI, Ray, BentoML, Weights & Biases).
• Experience with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Pinecone, Chroma), and prompt engineering for production applications.
• Strong background in AI/ML model governance, explainability (SHAP, LIME), and real-time monitoring for hallucination, drift, and fairness.
• Proven ability to define and execute AI/ML strategies that align with business goals and drive measurable innovation.
• Experience collaborating across cross-functional teams including product, data science, and engineering to deliver AI-driven features and products.
• Strong track record of mentoring and growing ML/AI engineers.
• Exceptional stakeholder communication skills, with the ability to bridge technical and business discussions effectively.
• Process & Methodologies: Hands-on experience implementing Agile/Scrum methodologies, CI/CD processes for ML/LLM workflows, and ML Ops/LLM Ops best practices.
• Financial Services or SaaS: Experience in fintech, banking software, or highly regulated industries is highly desirable.

What You’ll Get:                                                                   

• Market competitive total rewards package
• To be part of the Heart & SOUL of a winning company with an inspiring mission
• The opportunity to Make Big Things Happen
• Competitive salary along with full health benefits with an HSA option
• Flexible PTO and bank holidays
• 401(k) plan and company match

 We are an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, age, genetic trait, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Abrigo is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at Careers@abrigo.com with the subject line accommodation.