Senior Developer, Applied AI
Charlottesville, VA - USA
Job Summary
Are you a senior developer who thrives in collaborative environments and enjoys raising the bar for how teams build AI solutions
The Senior Developer designs develops and enhances software applications that support the mission of CFA Institute. This position will work within an agile cross-functional delivery team through all phases of the software development lifecycle to deliver and maintain software solutions while contributing to coding and design standards. They are responsible for applying design patterns. The Senior Developer Applied AI Engineer (Full-Stack) designs develops and rapidly prototypes high value artificial intelligence capabilities in support of CFA Institutes mission. This role sits within the AI Lab and blends advanced software engineering applied generative AI and product-oriented experimentation. The position focuses on quickly validating AI use cases (e.g. retrieval augmented generation agents copilots and workflows) establishing evaluation and guardrails and transitioning successful pilots to platform and engineering teams for production scale. The role operates within agile cross functional delivery teams and applies modern design patterns reference architectures and engineering best practices to deliver clean testable reusable and secure software assets . Do you bring both hands-on engineering depth and the ability to help shape standards design patterns and best practices within a growing AI Center of Excellence
What Youll Bring
Design develop and unit test end-to-end AI-enabled software solutions following standard software development lifecycle practices.
Rapidly prototype AI capabilities from concept to demonstrable proof of value including UI/API layers orchestration retrieval and evaluation.
Implement retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and enterprise search patterns including connectors chunking strategies embeddings access control relevance tuning and grounding/citation techniques.
Build and orchestrate agentic workflows using tool/function calling workflow orchestration guardrails observability and error handling.
Establish evaluation frameworks including test datasets golden answers regression testing hallucination detection safety checks and light red teaming.
Package successful outcomes into reusable assets such as reference implementations templates prompt/tool patterns and operational runbooks.
Design technical solutions aligned with CFA Institute reference architectures and enterprise standards.
Partner with subject matter experts and business stakeholders (e.g. Education RAS GCC) to define success criteria ROI signals and iterate on solutions.
Transition production ready concepts to engineering and platform teams with clear requirements architecture documentation risks and operational considerations.
Contribute to and evolve coding standards knowledge bases and shared engineering practices.
Translate business objectives into technical designs and support deployment maintenance and lifecycle management of applications.
What Youll Do
Bachelors degree in computer science or a related field or equivalent practical experience.
Minimum of five (5) years of professional software development experience with a strong delivery track record.
Strong full stack and/or backend engineering experience including API design and integration.
Handson experience building generative AI solutions using platforms such as OpenAI Azure OpenAI or Anthropic including prompt and tool orchestration and embeddings.
Proficiency in Python and/or TypeScript/.
Practical experience with search and retrieval technologies including vector databases or enterprise search platforms.
Experience integrating enterprise systems and productivity platforms (e.g. Microsoft 365 Teams SharePoint Atlassian Salesforce).
Experience across all phases of the development lifecycle including requirements development testing deployment and support.
Strong written and verbal communication skills including the ability to deliver clear demonstrations of technical solutions.
Ability to work effectively in ambiguous environments with a bias toward rapid experimentation and learning.
Preferred / Nice to Have
Experience in education technology assessment systems simulations scoring or human in the loop review workflows.
Familiarity with Microsoft Copilot Studio M365 Copilot extensibility Graph connectors and Teams/SharePoint integration.
Experience with observability and evaluation tooling including tracing prompt/version management and experiment tracking.
Familiarity with responsible AI practices including data handling privacy/PII considerations access controls auditability and compliance.
Experience with CI/CD pipelines automated testing performance monitoring and cloud-native deployment patterns
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About CFA Institute
CFA Institute are the global leader in investment excellence and ethics. With nearly 200000 charterholders across 160 markets we drive professional growth ethical behavior and better markets. We care about our employees well-being offering industry-leading benefits like:
Comprehensive health coverage for you and your family
Generous leave and time off
Competitive retirement plans
Flexible work options
Wellness education and support programs
If you feel this opportunity could be the next step in your career we encourage you to click Apply and complete our three-minute application.
Be part of a team committed to putting investors first and growing economies. Follow us @CFAInstitute on LinkedIn and X.
Important Message: Your application must clearly demonstrate how you meet the requirements as CFA Institute cannot make assumptions about your education experience or location. We thank all those who apply. Only those selected for further consideration will be contacted.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. CFA Institute prohibits both discrimination and harassment with regard to all identifying characteristics: any individual employee group of employees or prospective employee on the basis of race color national origin citizenship or immigration status religion creed or belief age marital or partnership status marital or family status care giver status pregnancy and maternity sexual and other reproductive health decisions physical abilities/qualities disability sexual orientation gender gender identity or expression predisposing genetic characteristic military or veteran status status as a victim or witness of domestic violence or sex offense or stalking unemployment status infectious disease carrier status migrant worker status educational background socio-economic status geographic location and culture or any other basis protected by applicable law. This policy impacts all aspects of employment including but not limited to recruitment hiring compensation training development promotion demotion layoff recall furlough transfer leave of absence and dismissal. This is a global policy that applies to all CFA Institute employees regardless of location.
If due to a disability or current medical condition you need an accommodation or assistance to complete a job application you can request one at any stage of the recruitment process. Please send an email to noting the accommodations or assistance you are requesting. Please do not include any medical or health information in this email. We will review your request and contact you to discuss the possible options and arrangements. We will try our best to provide you with an accommodation or assistance that meets your needs and respects your preferences.
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Required Experience:
Senior IC
About Company
We offer the CFA® and CIPM® designations, along with other programs and certificates that support finance professionals at all career stages.