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About This Role
Discover your future at Citi
Working at Citi is far more than just a job. A career with us means joining a team of approximately 219,000 dedicated people from around the globe. At Citi, you’ll have the opportunity to grow your career, give back to your community and make a real impact.
Job Overview
Job Overview
We are seeking an experienced Lead Agentic AI Engineer to help drive the design, development, and integration of state-of-the-art Generative AI and agentic AI solutions across our enterprise Controls Technology platform. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams, contribute deep technical expertise in context engineering, retrieval systems, knowledge graphs, and multi-agent orchestration, and play a key role in delivering scalable, grounded AI solutions to enhance automation and operational efficiency. This role centers on architecting robust applications and agent systems on top of pre-trained and hosted foundation models — not on training or fine-tuning models.
Key Responsibilities
- Collaborate with AI architects, leads, and stakeholders to design and implement generative and agentic AI solutions that address business challenges.
- Architect advanced context engineering strategies — context layering, chaining, compression, pruning/offloading, and memory management — to maximize reliability, provenance, and token efficiency in production.
- Design and implement advanced generative AI methods, including sophisticated prompt engineering and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
- Build and optimize RAG systems, including hybrid search, multi-vector retrieval, and re-ranking pipelines.
- Design and implement knowledge graphs and Graph RAG architectures to enable multi-hop reasoning, explainability, and traceable, grounded responses for high-value business domains.
- Architect agentic workflows and multi-agent systems using Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) and comparable frameworks (LangGraph, Microsoft Agent Framework, CrewAI), applying orchestration patterns such as supervisor/worker, hierarchical, and peer-to-peer.
- Design robust agent harnesses — governance, constraints, feedback loops, state/session management, and execution controls that make long-running agent systems reliable and safe.
- Integrate agents with tools and data via the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and orchestrate inter-agent collaboration and task delegation via the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol.
- Support the integration of GenAI and agentic applications into production environments, ensuring robust deployment, scalability, observability, and maintainability.
- Contribute to the development and optimization of real-time and streaming AI solutions.
- Stay current with the latest advances in generative and agentic AI and actively share knowledge with the team.
- Ensure adherence to ethical AI guidelines, guardrails, agent isolation/sandboxing, data privacy, and compliance standards.
- Mentor junior team members, provide code reviews, and foster a culture of technical excellence.
Required Technical Skills
- Deep, hands-on expertise in core generative AI concepts — foundation models, LLMs, embeddings, tokenization, and context-window management.
- Advanced skills in prompt engineering and context engineering, including familiarity with prompt design tools/frameworks and dynamic context orchestration.
- Strong experience building RAG systems, including chunking strategies, hybrid search, and multi-vector retrieval.
- Practical experience designing knowledge graphs and Graph RAG pipelines (e.g., using graph databases such as Neo4j or ArangoDB) for relationship-aware, multi-hop retrieval.
- Proven experience building agentic AI systems with Google ADK and/or comparable frameworks (LangGraph, Microsoft Agent Framework, CrewAI, OpenAI Agents SDK), including tool/function calling, planning, and memory.
- Strong grasp of multi-agent orchestration patterns (supervisor/worker, hierarchical, peer-to-peer) and harness engineering (governance, feedback loops, execution controls, agent isolation/sandboxing).
- Hands-on experience with agent interoperability protocols — the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for tool/data access and the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol for inter-agent collaboration.
- Experience with agent observability and evaluation (e.g., tracing, OpenTelemetry-based tooling) for production agent systems.
- Proficiency with major GenAI APIs (OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, etc.) and orchestration frameworks such as LangChain and LlamaIndex.
- Strong skills in NLP (NER, dependency parsing, text classification, topic modeling).
- Proficiency with vector databases and embedding models for large-scale retrieval.
- Experience with containerization (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes), and CI/CD pipelines for AI/agentic applications.
- Solid understanding of AI compliance, guardrails, and responsible AI practices.
- Strong skills in Python and experience with data preprocessing, document ingestion, and API development.
Required Soft Skills
- Strong collaboration skills to work effectively in cross-functional teams.
- Analytical and proactive approach to problem-solving.
- Clear communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Eagerness to learn, innovate, and mentor less experienced developers.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's or master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI, or a related field.
- 5–7 years of experience in AI/software development, including significant experience in Generative AI and agentic AI.
- Demonstrated portfolio of successful AI-driven projects in a business environment.
- Experience working with AWS (or equivalent) cloud infrastructure for AI/GenAI.
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Job Family Group:
Technology -
Job Family:
Applications Development -
Time Type:
Full time -
Primary Location:
Irving Texas United States -
Primary Location Full Time Salary Range:
$125,760.00 - $188,640.00
In addition to salary, Citi’s offerings may also include, for eligible employees, discretionary and formulaic incentive and retention awards. Citi offers competitive employee benefits, including: medical, dental & vision coverage; 401(k); life, accident, and disability insurance; and wellness programs. Citi also offers paid time off packages, including planned time off (vacation), unplanned time off (sick leave), and paid holidays. For additional information regarding Citi employee benefits, please visit citibenefits.com. Available offerings may vary by jurisdiction, job level, and date of hire.
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Most Relevant Skills
Please see the requirements listed above. -
Other Relevant Skills
For complementary skills, please see above and/or contact the recruiter. -
Anticipated Posting Close Date:
Sep 24, 2026 -
Automated Processing and AI
We use automated processing, including artificial intelligence, for our legitimate business interests (or our reasonable and appropriate business purposes) to identify and align the candidate's skills and abilities with a specific job opening. Additionally, if you so choose, or consent, we can match your skills and abilities to other suitable roles at Citi.
Importantly, all our hiring processes and decisions, including determining your suitability for a role, are conducted, checked, and decided by individuals. Our automated processing and AI do not involve relying on automatic or autonomous decision-making. Please refer to any Jurisdictional Considerations, with specific provisions for your country (where relevant) for further details.
Illinois residents – AI Notice and Right
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Citi is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Salary Context
This $125K-$188K range is below the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $176K across 1540 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 9,653 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 76% of the market. At Citi, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $212,000 based on 11,857 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $228,700. This role's midpoint ($157K) sits 26% below the category median. Disclosed range: $125K to $188K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($253,100) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $110,408; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $228,700; Director: $272,275; VP: $235,000.
Citi AI Hiring
Citi has 69 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Software Engineer, AI Product Manager, Data Scientist. Positions span Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Getzville, NY, US, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Compensation range: $160K - $300K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 6% (568 positions) offer remote work, while 9,010 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,878 roles, $221,000 median); San Francisco (2,413 roles, $264,500 median); Los Angeles (1,340 roles, $210,000 median).
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 9,653 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 193 entry-level, 4,500 mid-level, 3,455 senior, and 1,505 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (568 positions). The remaining 9,010 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($253,100 median, 57 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 419 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 51 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 9,653 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (7,301), Data Scientist (441), AI Software Engineer (438). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (193) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,500) and senior (3,455) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,505 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (568 positions), with 9,010 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,400. Top-quartile roles start at $264,230, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $253,100 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,605 postings), Aws (916 postings), Azure (724 postings), Rag (634 postings), Gcp (522 postings), Pytorch (495 postings), Kubernetes (384 postings), Claude (383 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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