Principal Engineer - Agentic AI for IT Operations

General Information ----------------

Ally Financial only succeeds when its people do - and thats more than some cliché people put on job postings. We live this stuff. We see our people as well people - with interests, families, friends, dreams, and causes that are all important to them. Our focus is on the health and safety of our teammates as well as work-life balance and diversity and inclusion. From generous benefits to a variety of employee resource groups, we strive to build paths that encourage employees to stretch themselves professionally. We want to help you grow, develop, and learn new things. Youre constantly evolving, so shouldnt your opportunities be too?

Work Schedule -------------

Ally designates roles as 1 fully on-site, 2 hybrid, or 3 fully remote. Hybrid roles are generally expected to be in the office a certain number of days per week as indicated by your manager. Your hiring manager will discuss this roles specific work requirements with you during the hiring process. All work requirements are subject to change at any time based on leader discretion and/or business need.

The Opportunity ----------------

At Ally, you get a startup feel but experience the benefits of a company that has worked out the kinks and is fulfilling its purpose. We are always evolving and see that as a good thing. From owning our work to seeing its impact in the real world, our team is relentless in finding new ways technology can help make experiences better and help people. We are problem solvers, we value diverse thinking, we support one another, and we challenge ourselves to think bigger in the journey to deliver customer-obsessed tech solutions. To read more about what our tech team does, be sure to visit our tech blog at ally.tech.

Job Description ----------------

We are seeking a Principal Engineer to lead the design, implementation, and adoption of agentic AI solutions that transform how our Corporate Technology organization manages incidents, changes, and problems across complex production environments, including SaaS, COTS, and homegrown applications, which are on-prem and the cloud. This role is a key technical leader driving operational reliability, automation, and risk-aligned engineering practices across the enterprise. You will work closely with Security, Enterprise Operations, Risk, and Compliance, and application teams to architect solutions, ensure compliance with mandates, and accelerate delivery. You will bring deep technical expertise, a collaborative mindset, and a passion for modernizing IT operations with AI-driven automation.

Responsibilities -----------------

• Develop and evolve agentic AI solutions that automate incident management, change management, and problem management workflows.
• Build intelligent agents for detection, triage, diagnostics, communication, and remediation across production applications for SaaS, COTS, and homegrown applications.
• Design and implement scalable integration patterns with monitoring, logging, ticketing, automation, and observability platforms.
• Partner with production support, SRE, and application teams to improve reliability, reduce MTTR, and automate operational runbooks.
• Establish engineering standards for safe deployment, testing, and monitoring of AI-enabled automation.
• Provide technical leadership during major incidents, ensuring agent-driven tooling and guidance supports consistent recovery.
• Drive completion of corporate tech risk and compliance mandates across application teams.
• Define technical controls, ensure alignment with regulatory requirements, and guide teams through implementation.
• Track program execution, identify gaps, and escalate risks with clarity and data.
• Serve as a key technical liaison across Security, Enterprise Operations, Infrastructure, Risk, and Compliance.
• Lead technical discussions, influence architectural decisions, and gain alignment across multiple stakeholder groups.
• Communicate complex concepts in a clear, approachable, and outcomes-focused way.

Skills and Qualifications -------------------------

• 5 years of software engineering experience with strong depth in distributed systems, enterprise operations, or SRE.
• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or similar field or equivalent experience.
• Hands-on experience building automation or AI-driven operational tooling, such as agent-based systems, LLM apps, observability-driven automation, self-healing systems.
• Expertise with incident, change, and problem management processes in large enterprise environments.
• Strong understanding of governance, risk, and compliance frameworks, technology control standards, audit readiness, policy implementation.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional technical initiatives with diverse partners.
• Excellent communication skills, approachable, practical, and team-oriented working style.
• Ability to influence without authority and drive execution at scale.

Preferred Skills ----------------

• Awareness of the latest AI technology.
• Experience with LLM frameworks, multi-agent orchestration, or retrieval-augmented automation.
• Experience with Code IDEs with AI agents, such as Cursor VSCode with Agents, etc.
• Familiarity with ServiceNow APMlog platforms, Dynatrace, Splunk, CICD, and cloud platforms.
• Background in FinTech or regulated industries.

Compensation and Benefits -------------------------

Allys compensation program offers market-competitive base pay and pay-for-performance incentives, bonuses based on achieving personal and company goals. Our Total Rewards program includes industry-leading compensation and benefits, plus additional incentives designed to meet your needs and those of your family. This includes:

• Time Away Program: starts at 20 paid time off days, in addition to 11 paid holidays and 8 hours of volunteer time off yearly.
• Planning for the Future: industry-leading 401K retirement savings plan with matching and company contributions, student loan paydowns, and 529 educational savings assistance programs.
• Supporting your Health & Well-being: flexible health and insurance options, including medical, dental, and vision, employee spouse and child life insurance, short- and long-term disability, pre-tax Health Savings Account with employer contributions, and a total well-being program.
• Building a Family: adoption surrogacy and fertility assistance, paid parental and caregiver leave, Dependent Day Care FSA, back-up child and adult elder care days, and childcare discounts.
• Work-Life Integration: other benefits, including Mentally Fit Employee Assistance Program, subsidized and discounted Weight Watchers program, and other employee discount programs.

Other compensations, depending on the role, may include travel allowances, relocation assistance, a signing bonus, and/or equity.

About Ally Financial -------------------

Ally Financial is a customer-centric, leading digital financial services company with passionate customer service and innovative financial solutions. We are relentlessly focused on Doing it Right and being a trusted financial-services provider to our consumer, commercial, and corporate customers. For more information, visit www.ally.com. Ally is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression, pregnancy status, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic disposition, or any other reason protected by law. We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to applicants with physical or mental disabilities.