AI/ML Platform Engineer - Senior Specialist

About Us

American Century Investments is a leading global asset manager with over 65 years of experience helping a broad base of clients achieve their financial goals. Our expertise spans global equities and fixed income, multi-asset strategies, ETFs, and private investments.

Privately controlled and independent, we focus solely on investment management. But there's an unexpected side to us, too. We direct 40% of our dividends every year-over $2 billion since 2000-to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. Our ongoing financial support drives the Institute's breakthrough work and mission of defeating life-threatening diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's. So, the better we do for our clients, the more we can do for everyone.

All 1,400 of us across the globe are inspired every day by the unique difference our hard work can make in so many lives. It shows in the curiosity we bring to every initiative, the deep relationships we build with our clients, and the way we treat each other in the hallway. If you're excited to learn more about us, we can't wait to learn more about you.

Role Summary

The AI/ML Platform Engineer - Senior Specialist is a senior individual contributor who sets technical direction for the enterprise AI platform while remaining hands-on. This role is focused on enablement at scale: building durable platform capabilities, defining standards, consulting with teams, and continuously evolving the platform as AI technologies advance.

Rather than delivering AI applications, you enable many teams to deliver AI safely and effectively through shared services, guardrails, and expertise. This role reports to the Director, AI and ML Enablement - Enterprise Data.

This hybrid position will be based out of our Kansas City, Missouri office. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship. Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. without visa sponsorship, now or in the future.

How You Will Make an Impact

• Define and evolve enterprise AI platform architecture
• Architect and deliver high leverage platform capabilities, including: • Model, prompt, and agent lifecycle management • Evaluation frameworks (offline, online, and human feedback) • Observability standards for AI systems • Reusable RAG and agentic orchestration patterns
• Ensure platform components are modular, extensible, and broadly applicable

Technical Leadership through Enablement (IC)

• Act as a senior technical advisor to teams adopting AI
• Lead design and usage reviews to ensure proper application of AI techniques
• Influence outcomes through standards, reference implementations, and guidance rather than direct ownership of use cases

Platform Agnostic AI Strategy

• Evaluate and integrate AI capabilities across ecosystems: • Predictive ML platforms (e.g., SageMaker) • LLM platforms (e.g., Amazon Bedrock, open source) • Agentic frameworks and orchestration tooling
• Maintain a balanced approach between managed services and open tooling

Evaluation, Observability, and Feedback as First Class Concerns

• Define enterprise evaluation strategy, including: • Regression testing for models, prompts, and agents • Online quality and behavior signals • Structured human and end user feedback loops
• Enable teams to refine AI systems through measurable changes to hyperparameters, features, prompts, and retrieval configurations

Research and Assess Emerging AI Technologies

• Continuously research new AI products, services, and frameworks
• Run structured evaluations and POCs with clear success criteria
• Recommend adoption paths and integrate winning capabilities into the platform

Raise the Bar Across the Organization

• Create reference architectures, paved paths, and design guidance
• Mentor engineers and review platform level designs
• Clearly communicate complex tradeoffs to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders

What You Bring to the Team (Required)

• 5+ years of software engineering experience with complex, distributed systems
• Deep expertise in Python and platform/service engineering
• Strong experience operating AI systems in cloud environments (platform agnostic)
• Advanced understanding of ML and LLM evaluation, observability, and iteration
• Proven ability to influence and lead through technical expertise as an IC
• Strong learning mindset in a rapidly evolving AI space

What Success Looks Like

• The AI platform is widely adopted and trusted across the organization
• Teams ship AI faster and safely due to clear standards and tooling
• The platform evolves continuously to incorporate new AI capabilities without destabilizing existing users

The above statements are not intended to be a complete list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required.

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation package with bonus plan
• Generous PTO and competitive benefits
• 401k with 5% company match plus annual performance-based discretionary contribution
• Tuition reimbursement, formal mentorship program, live and online learning
• Learn more about our benefits and perks.

Employees are required to be in the office on a scheduled frequency. Adherence to this schedule is essential to fulfilling the expectations of the role.

American Century Investments is committed to complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act and all other applicable Equal Employment Opportunity laws and regulations. As such, American Century strives to provide a reasonable accommodation to any qualified individual under the ADA to perform essential job functions.

We encourage people of all backgrounds to join us on our mission. If you require reasonable accommodation for any aspect of the recruitment process, please send a request to HR-Talent_Acquisition@americancentury.com. All requests for accommodation will be addressed as confidentially as practicable.

American Century Investments believes all individuals are entitled to equal employment opportunity and advancement opportunities without regard to race, religious creed, color, sex, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age for individuals forty years of age and older, military and veteran status, sexual orientation, and any other basis protected by applicable federal, state and local laws. ACI does not discriminate or adopt any policy that discriminates against an individual or any group of individuals on any of these bases.

#LI-Hybrid American Century Proprietary Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.