Job Summary

Lead, AI Engineering

We are seeking a highly skilled Lead AI Engineer to join our innovative team. The ideal candidate will have a passion for developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence solutions, leading engineering teams, and driving the strategic direction of AI technologies. As a Lead AI Engineer, you will be responsible for overseeing the development, deployment, and optimization of machine learning and AI models, while mentoring junior engineers and collaborating cross-functionally to achieve business goals.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy
•    Lead AI model training, evaluation, and hyperparameter tuning to ensure optimal performance.
•    Conduct code reviews and enforce best practices for development, testing, and deployment of AI systems.
•    Stay updated with the latest advancements in AI/ML technologies and trends, and integrate innovative techniques into product development.
•    Contribute to the strategic direction of the AI roadmap, ensuring alignment with company goals.
•    Drive AI research and development initiatives to advance new AI methodologies and technologies.
•    Oversee the integration of AI solutions into production environments and ensure ongoing performance optimization.

Business
•    Develop roadmap to accelerate adoption of data analytics, ML and AI within FM business across trading, risk, reference data, client onboarding and operations.
•    Partner with business stakeholders and technology partners to deliver AI solutions that enable analytics and decision-making.
•    Collaborate with cross-functional teams (Data Science, Product, Operations, etc.) to align AI solutions with business objectives.
•    Incubation of various Data, ML & AI solution together with stakeholders from business to constantly search for opportunities to increase sales, optimize processes and mitigate risk.

Processes
•    Architect scalable and efficient AI solutions with a focus on performance, maintainability, and scalability.
•    Implement golden sources of data and enforce consistency across trading books, risk, reference data, client onboarding data, and SSI data.
•    Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements: automating manual processes,
optimizing data delivery, re-designing infrastructure for greater scalability, etc.
•    Implement process for managing the complete data lifecycle, from acquisition and storage to transformation, archival and deletion.

People & Talent
•    Lead the design, development, and deployment of machine learning models and AI-based systems to solve complex business problems.
•    Guide and mentor junior AI engineers, helping them grow in their careers and improve their technical skills.
•    Contribute to a culture of knowledge sharing by staying current on modern data architecture trends and practices. 
•    Demonstration of technology thought leadership, foster productive business relationships, and build strong sponsorship of our technology architecture and roadmap.

Risk Management
•    Responsible for proactively seeking regular assurance that function is performing to an acceptable risk and control standards.
•    Responsible to act quickly and decisively when any risk and control weakness become apparent and ensure they are addressed within an appropriate timeframe and, if necessary, escalated through the relevant committees. 
•    Responsible to balance business performance delivery and cost management with risk and control matters to ensure that it does not materially threaten the Group, remaining within risk appetite.
•    Responsible to work in collaboration with risk and control teams.

Governance
•    Ensure all regulatory, compliance and internal control requirements are met. Develop and execute plans for QPR approval to mitigate any risk / non-compliances.
•    Ensure data quality (DQMF) is applied for data analytics and AI projects.
•    Ensure compliance with all salient SCB data governance frameworks where there are direct touchpoints with them or any subsequent downstream. 
•    Responsible AI – incl. the governance of data and algorithms used for analysis, analytical applications and automated decision making in FM. Ensure that model used are responsible and explainable.

Regulatory & Business Conduct
•    Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct. 
•    Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
•    Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.

Key stakeholders
•    Markets Technology teams 
•    Markets Business Heads, COO & CPOs
•    Markets Operations Team
•    Markets Architects
•    Technology & Architecture (T&A) Team
•    Chief Data Officer & CDO’s office

Other Responsibilities
Embed Here for good and Group’s brand and values in Financial Markets; Perform other responsibilities assigned under Group, Country, Business or Functional policies and procedures; Multiple functions (double hats).

Skills and Experience

Education
•    Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field.          

Technical and Domain Expertise
•    7+ years of experience in AI/ML engineering, with at least 3+ years in a leadership role.
•    Expertise in machine learning algorithms, deep learning, NLP, computer vision, and reinforcement learning.
•    Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Java, C++, or similar.
•    Experience with AI frameworks and libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras, etc.).
•    Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and software engineering principles.
•    Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) and distributed computing.
•    Proven track record of building and deploying AI systems in production environments.
•    Excellent problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills.
•    Ability to mentor and lead a team of engineers, fostering an environment of innovation and continuous learning.

Leadership and Strategic Capability
•    Proven track record of leading global teams, delivering large-scale data initiatives.
•    Strong interpersonal skills to work effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders with ability to influence across business and technology.
•    Strong analytical, problem-solving, and storytelling skills to advocate for data-driven transformation.
•    Excellent communication, able to articulate complex technical concepts to senior executives and regulators.

Key Competencies

•    Strategic Thinking & Execution
•    Technical Leadership & Hands-on Expertise
•    Stakeholder Management & Communication
•    Innovation & Continuous Improvement
•    Talent Development & Team Building
•    Risk Awareness & Governance Discipline.

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.