Lead Software Engineer

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase · Banking · GLASGOW, LANARKSHIRE, United Kingdom · Corporate Sector

Lead Software Engineer at JPMorgan Chase responsible for designing, building, and operating complex, AI-powered software initiatives using large language models and agentic approaches. The role involves end-to-end ownership from discovery to production, including API design, microservices, multi-cloud operations, and infrastructure as code. Key responsibilities include implementing AI solutions with prompting, tool/function calling, retrieval patterns, and memory management, as well as building guardrails, evaluation frameworks, monitoring, and cost/latency optimizations for LLM systems. The role also emphasizes engineering excellence, mentoring, and driving adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead initiatives end-to-end — from requirements clarification and architecture through implementation, testing, release, and production support — with strong ownership and minimal supervision
  2. Design and implement AI solutions using large language models and modern agent patterns, including prompting strategies, tool/function calling, retrieval patterns, routing, and memory/state management where applicable
  3. Build guardrails, evaluation frameworks, monitoring pipelines, and cost/latency optimizations for production LLM-based systems
  4. Design, build, and operate REST and gRPC APIs and microservices, defining clear contracts using OpenAPI and Protobuf while ensuring backward compatibility, authentication, rate limiting, and observability
  5. Apply resilience engineering patterns — including timeouts, retries, and circuit breakers — to ensure reliable, production-grade service behavior

Skills

Required

  • Formal training or certification on software engineering concepts and advanced applied experience
  • Proven track record leading software delivery end-to-end with strong ownership and the ability to execute independently across the full development lifecycle
  • Strong Python software engineering skills for building production-grade services and automation, with solid testing, packaging, and maintainability practices
  • Strong understanding of relational databases and SQL, including schema design, query optimization, indexing, and transaction management
  • Demonstrated experience building AI solutions using large language models in production environments, including quality assurance, safety controls, evaluation, observability, and cost management
  • Strong API and microservices engineering experience, including service design, contract definition, security patterns, performance tuning, and distributed system observability
  • Hands-on multi-cloud experience (AWS preferred) with strong distributed systems fundamentals and a portability-minded approach to design
  • Strong Terraform skills for infrastructure-as-code, module design, environment management, and remote state handling
  • Working knowledge of DevOps practices including CI/CD pipelines, Git-based workflows, and Kubernetes deployments
  • Hands-on experience using enterprise-authorized AI-assisted software development tools within the work environment (e.g., for coding, test creation, troubleshooting, or documentation) with demonstrated ability to critically evaluate, validate, and refine AI-generated outputs for correctness, performance, and security
  • Understanding of responsible AI use in engineering workflows, including data sensitivity considerations, secure handling of inputs/outputs, and adherence to resiliency and security expectations; ability to guide peers on safe and effective usage within team practicests.

Nice to have

  • Experience designing and building agentic architectures, including tool use, planning and execution loops, and multi-step workflow orchestration
  • Experience building reusable internal libraries or frameworks that accelerate team delivery and promote engineering consistency
  • Familiarity with advanced LLM evaluation techniques, including automated benchmarking, red-teaming, and latency/cost profiling in production
  • Experience with gRPC and Protobuf-based service design in distributed, high-throughput environments
  • Exposure to platform or developer experience engineering, including internal tooling, shared infrastructure patterns, or delivery enablement frameworks.

What the JD emphasized

  • minimal supervision
  • minimal supervision
  • production LLM-based systems
  • production environments
  • production-grade service behavior
  • production issues
  • production
  • production

Other signals

  • design and build intelligent systems leveraging large language models and agentic approaches
  • Build guardrails, evaluation frameworks, monitoring pipelines, and cost/latency optimizations for production LLM-based systems
  • Demonstrated experience building AI solutions using large language models in production environments