Lead Machine Learning Engineer (London)

The Fitch Group Emerging Technology AI Center of Excellence (COE) group is seeking a principal machine learning or AI engineer to be part of a team dedicated to building and supporting Generative AI, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Data Science solutions across the organisation. The position will be based out of our London or Manchester office.

Specific Emerging Technology team objectives are:

• Gen AI/ML technology implementation with business and product owners
• Emerging Tech Governance function covering policies, guidelines, and processes to govern AI/ML enabled components as well as third-party AI governance
• Lead and support other enterprise-level AI exploration tools and capabilities
• Provide guidance and support for safe development and deployment of AI

What We Offer:

• This will be a high-impact role with significant visibility where the candidate will work on some flagship Fitch products.
• The candidate will have an excellent opportunity to work in the cutting-edge field of machine learning and data science.
• Fitch promotes an excellent work culture and is known for providing a good work-life balance.

We'll Count on You To:

• Work closely as part of the product squads to build, integrate, and deploy GenAI, multi-AI-Agents, and data science solutions.
• Ensure sharing best practices and learnings with other squad members.
• Design and spearhead the development of Gen AI, AI Agents, and MLOps platforms, applications, and solutions driven by GenAI, deep learning, and machine learning to address business challenges and elevate product performance.
• Build standards and recommendations for the AI engineering tech stack and data science models used across different enterprise AI use cases.
• Work closely with AI implementation, governance, and enterprise architecture squads to apply the appropriate standards.
• Keep abreast of the latest vendors across different areas of emerging technologies and actively participate in vendor evaluations and tool assessments for relevant use cases.
• Where appropriate, onboard the right solutions into the platform.
• Effectively communicate advanced data science/ML concepts in simple language to the business stakeholders, always focusing on its applicability to Fitch business.
• Develop and deploy machine learning and Gen AI solutions to meet enterprise goals and support experimentation and innovation.
• Collaborate with data scientists to identify innovative machine learning and Gen AI solutions that leverage data to meet business goals.
• Design and develop scalable solutions and GenAI and ML workflows that leverage machine learning, Gen AI, and deep learning models to meet enterprise requirements.
• Actively participate in maintaining SLAs for Production applications and support.
• Create metrics to continuously evaluate the performance of machine learning solutions and improve the performance of existing machine learning solutions.
• Build with AWS and Azure cloud computing services providing the necessary infrastructure, resources, and interfaces to enable data loading and LLM workflows.
• Use Python/Java and large-scale data workflow orchestration platforms e.g. Airflow to construct software artifacts for ETL, interfacing with diverse data formats and storage technologies, and incorporate them into robust data workflows and dynamic systems.

What You Need to Have:

• Work experience as a ML or AI engineer (5+ years).
• Prior experience developing production quality Python is essential.
• Deep understanding of Agentic AI systems and multi-agent architectures.
• Proficiency in machine learning and deep learning algorithms such as Deep learning, NLP, Neural networks, multi-class classifications, decision trees, support vector machines.
• Strong adherence to software and ML development fundamentals (e.g. code quality considerations, automated testing, source version control, optimisation).
• Prior experience working on building Gen AI frameworks and leveraging and/or fine-tuning LLMs.
• Experience building/enhancing search and information retrieval systems.
• Exposure/experience in containerisation technologies like Docker, Kubernetes, AWS EKS etc.
• Knowledge of popular Cloud computing vendor (AWS and Azure) infrastructure & services e.g. AWS Bedrock, AWS S3, AWS Sagemaker, Azure AI search, Azure OpenAI, Azure blob storage etc.
• Master's degree or above in Machine Learning/Data Science, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics or otherwise research-based field.

What Would Make You Stand Out:

• Passionate about the power of data and predictive analytics to drive better business outcomes for customers.
• Proven ability to work effectively in a distributed working environment and ability to work efficiently and productively in a fast-paced environment.
• Familiarity with credit ratings agencies, regulations, and data products around the world.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
• A champion of good code quality and architectural practices.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work proactively and as a team player.

Why Fitch?

At Fitch Group, the combined power of our global perspectives is what differentiates us. Our global network of colleagues comes together to accomplish things greater than they ever could alone. Every team member is essential to our business and each perspective is critical to our success. We embrace a diverse culture that encourages a free exchange of ideas, guaranteeing your voice will be heard and your work will have an impact, regardless of seniority. We are building incredible things at Fitch and we invite you to join us on our journey.