Director, AI Software Engineering(India, China)

Job Description This job is with Standard Chartered Bank, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. Please do not contact the recruiter directly. Job Summary - This role could be based in India and China. When you start the application process you will be presented with a drop down menu showing all countries, Please ensure that you select a country where the role is based. - We seek a senior software engineering leader to build and run the engineering backbone of our AI Center of Excellence (AI CoE). This role owns the end-to-end (E2E) delivery of Python-based AI platforms and products, from design and secure development through model/service deployment, production operations, governance, and lifecycle management in a regulated banking environment. You will lead multi-disciplinary team members to turn prototypes into compliant, scalable, reliable systems that create measurable business value. Leadership & Strategy - Define the AI engineering vision, roadmap, and operating model for the AI CoE; translate business priorities into executable, value-driven delivery plans. - Establish standards for AI software engineering excellence: secure SDLC, architecture review, technical design, coding conventions, documentation, and inner-source practices. - Drive a product mindset: clear backlogs, fast iteration cycles, and outcome-based KPIs. Platform & Architecture (Python Full-Stack) - Architect and deliver reusable Python platforms (backend), ReAct/Vue (frontend) and reference services for: - LLM, RAG/GraphRAG services, agent orchestration, prompt/version management, evaluation-as-code, guardrails, and content moderation. - Data/feature/vector stores; retrieval pipelines; Text-to-SQL and tool-calling services. - Own API and event-driven architectures (REST/gRPC/FastAPI; Kafka/PubSub), microservices, and front-end integration (React/TypeScript/Next.js) for internal users (RMs, analysts) and operational teams. - Ensure non-functional excellence: performance, cost, resiliency, observability, and operability (SLOs, error budgets). E2E Productionization in Banking - Lead the path from PoC MVP production, including change management, release governance, DR/BCP, capacity planning, and runbooks. - Implement robust CI/CD & GitOps (build/test/scan/sign/release) for Python services, models, and data pipelines across hybrid infra (Kubernetes/OpenShift; on-prem & cloud). - Partner with model risk and validation to embed evaluation gates (offline/online AB tests, drift/guardrail monitors) before and after go-live. Security, Risk & Compliance - Ensure data privacy, secrets, access control, and lineage; enforce SAST/DAST/SCA, container/image signing, SBOMs, data contracts, and audit trails. - Align delivery with bank governance (model risk, data privacy, records retention, third-party risk); streamline approvals with evidence-backed automation. - Champion safe-by-design AI: red-teaming, prompt-injection defenses, eval suites, and incident playbooks. Operations & SRE for AI - Stand up AI-SRE practices: golden signals, OpenTelemetry instrumentation, autoscaling, canary/blue-green deploys, shadow traffic, and rollback strategies. - Establish runtime cost/latency optimization (token budgets, caching, distillation/quantization, routing). People & Stakeholder Management - Build and mentor high-performing teams (managers, leads, ICs) across backend, data/ML, and front-end disciplines. - Partner with COE CPO, Data science team, CDO, AI platform, Security, Cloud, Data Platform, and Business Lines to unblock delivery; manage vendors/open-source responsibly. Strategy - Awareness and understanding of the Group's AI COE strategy and model appropriate to the role. Business - Awareness and understanding of how the AI models operating in the Group Processes - Responsible for developing some Machine Learning/GenAI models Risk Management - The ability to interpret the Machine Learning models, identify key issues and put in place appropriate model controls and measures. Governance - Identify key Responsible AI related to the models developed 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 - CIB AI COE Skills And Experience - Data Science - (Large) Data processing - Data Analytics - Programming skills, e.g., Python - ML/DL frameworks, e.g., Scikit-learn, XGboost, Torch, Tensorflow - Cloud - Production deployment - API - Software risk - AI Model Risk Qualifications - Education BACHELOR'S degree (or above) in Computer Science, Computing engineering, Mathematics, or a related field. - Languages English 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.