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AI Product Engineer, Director

Locations: New York, New York

Overview of Technology roles

At BlackRock, technology has always been at the core of what we do – and today, our technologists continue to shape the future of the industry with their innovative work. We are not only curious but also collaborative and eager to embrace experimentation as a means to solve complex challenges. Here you’ll find an environment that promotes working across teams, businesses, regions and specialties – and a firm committed to supporting your growth as a technologist through curated learning opportunities, tech-specific career paths, and access to experts and leaders around the world.

Job description

About this role

At BlackRock, technology is fundamental to how we serve clients and operate at scale. Aladdin—our industry‑leading, end‑to‑end investment management platform—embodies this by combining deep financial expertise with advanced data and AI capabilities.

We are seeking a Director of AI Platform / Engineering to provide technical and strategic leadership within the Aladdin AI Engineering organization. In this role, you will be responsible for shaping the direction of Aladdin’s AI platform, leading high‑impact engineering initiatives, and ensuring the delivery of scalable, reliable, and responsible AI solutions across investment, operations, and data science workflows.

This role requires a blend of hands‑on technical deptharchitectural leadership, and people and delivery leadership. You will work closely with senior engineering leaders, product managers, data scientists, and business stakeholders to translate AI strategy into production‑grade platforms and services.

Key Responsibilities

Technical & Architectural Leadership

  • Set the technical vision and architecture for Aladdin’s AI platform, including LLM‑powered and agentic AI systems.

  • Lead the design and evolution of scalable AI/ML platform services, APIs, and microservices that support Aladdin’s global user base.

  • Drive architectural decisions across distributed systems, ensuring reliability, scalability, security, and operational excellence.

  • Establish and enforce engineering standards, design patterns, and best practices across AI platform teams.

  • Ensure AI solutions are built with strong considerations for governance, observability, resilience, and responsible AI.

Delivery & Execution

  • Own delivery outcomes for multiple concurrent initiatives, balancing near‑term execution with long‑term platform evolution.

  • Partner with product management to define roadmaps, prioritize investments, and align execution with business outcomes.

  • Oversee production readiness, including design reviews, risk assessments, release management, and operational support.

  • Drive continuous improvement in engineering workflows, quality, and delivery predictability.

People & Organizational Leadership

  • Lead, mentor, and develop senior engineers, technical leads, and managers.

  • Build a strong engineering culture centered on ownership, rigor, collaboration, and technical excellence.

  • Support hiring, onboarding, performance management, and succession planning.

  • Act as a senior technical voice across leadership forums and architectural reviews.

Stakeholder & Cross‑Functional Collaboration

  • Partner closely with platform, product, data science, and infrastructure leaders.

  • Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to senior leadership and non‑technical stakeholders.

  • Represent Aladdin AI Engineering in cross‑organizational initiatives and governance forums.

Required Qualifications

AI / ML‑Specific Qualifications

  • Proven experience leading teams that build AI‑driven platforms and applications, including solutions leveraginglarge language models (LLMs),AI Agents, agent tools and agent skills.

  • Strong hands‑on familiarity with LLM frameworks such as LangChainLlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, or equivalent.

  • Experience with Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) or comparable agent frameworks, including designing, orchestrating, and operating agent‑based systems in production.

  • Deep understanding of agentic AI architectures, including multi‑agent coordination, tool invocation, and stateful reasoning workflows.

  • Experience with prompt engineering and prompt tuning at scale, including performance, reliability, and safety optimization.

  • Strong understanding of ML model evaluation, monitoring, and behavioral drift management in production systems.

  • Experience integrating vector databases (e.g., Faiss, Chroma) into AI system architectures.

  • Solid understanding of MLOps practices, including model lifecycle management, deployment pipelines, and observability.

  • Experience leveraging AInative code editors and IDEs (e.g., Copilotenabled IDEs, agentassisted development environments, or similar AIaugmented tooling) to improve developer productivity, code quality, and delivery velocity.

  • Experience establishing best practices and guardrails for the responsible use of AInative development tools, including considerations for security, IP protection, compliance, and code quality. 

  • Ability to evaluate and guide adoption of emerging AIpowered developer tools, balancing innovation with maintainability, governance, and platform standards.

  • Strong awareness of responsible AI principles, governance, and risk management when deploying AI systems in regulated environments.

Core Engineering & Leadership Qualifications

  • B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

  • 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant leadership of large‑scale, distributed systems.

  • Proven track record of technical leadership, owning platform architecture and multi‑team delivery.

  • Deep expertise in object‑oriented programming, particularly Java and Python.

  • Strong experience designing and operatingscalable APIs, microservices, and distributed systems in production.

  • Extensive experience with cloud platforms (Azure preferred; AWS or GCP acceptable).

  • Strong understanding of event‑driven architectures, messaging systems (e.g., Kafka), and asynchronous processing.

  • Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.

  • Hands‑on experience with relational and NoSQL datastores, including Cassandra.

  • Strong grasp of Agile delivery models, SDLC governance, and operational excellence.

  • Demonstrated ability to influence across teams and senior leadership.

Why BlackRock

Joining BlackRock means becoming part of a firm that oversees more than $14 trillion in assets and operates at the intersection of finance and technology. As a Director in Aladdin AI Engineering, you will play a critical role in shaping the future of AI‑powered investment management at global scale.

For New York, NY Only the salary range for this position is USD$240,000.00 - USD$300,000.00 . Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, and benefits including healthcare, leave benefits, and retirement benefits. BlackRock operates a pay-for-performance compensation philosophy and your total compensation may vary based on role, location, and firm, department and individual performance.

Our benefits

To help you stay energized, engaged and inspired, we offer a wide range of benefits including a strong retirement plan, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive healthcare, support for working parents and Flexible Time Off (FTO) so you can relax, recharge and be there for the people you care about.

Our hybrid work model

BlackRock’s hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration and apprenticeship that enriches the experience of our employees, while supporting flexibility for all. Employees are currently required to work at least 4 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 1 day a week. Some business groups may require more time in the office due to their roles and responsibilities. We remain focused on increasing the impactful moments that arise when we work together in person – aligned with our commitment to performance and innovation. As a new joiner, you can count on this hybrid model to accelerate your learning and onboarding experience here at BlackRock.

About BlackRock

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more people experience financial well-being.  Our clients, and the people they serve, are saving for retirement, paying for their children’s educations, buying homes and starting businesses. Their investments also help to strengthen the global economy: support businesses small and large; finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities; and facilitate innovations that drive progress.

This mission would not be possible without our smartest investment – the one we make in our employees. It’s why we’re dedicated to creating an environment where our colleagues feel welcomed, valued and supported with networks, benefits and development opportunities to help them thrive.

For additional information on BlackRock, please visit @blackrock | Twitter: @blackrock | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/blackrock

BlackRock is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity to all applicants and existing employees, and we evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, creed, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity/expression), sexual orientation, age, ancestry, physical or mental disability, marital status, political affiliation, religion, citizenship status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other basis protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. View the EEOC’s Know Your Rights poster and its supplement and the pay transparency statement.

BlackRock is committed to full inclusion of all qualified individuals and to providing reasonable accommodations or job modifications for individuals with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation/adjustments are needed throughout the employment process, please email Disability.Assistance@blackrock.com. All requests are treated in line with our privacy policy.

BlackRock will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in a manner consistent with the requirements of the law, including any applicable fair chance law.
Job Requisition #
R261706
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BlackRock Principles

We look to hire people that will embody our BlackRock Principles:

  • We are a fiduciary to our clients.

    This is the bedrock of our identity; it reflects our integrity and the unbiased advice we give our clients.

  • We are One BlackRock.

    We work collaboratively to create the best outcomes for our clients, our firm and the communities where we operate.

  • We are passionate about performance.

    We are relentless in innovating and finding better ways to serve our clients and improve our firm.

  • We take emotional ownership.

    We have a deep sense of responsibility to our clients and to each other.

  • We are committed to a better future.

    We are long-term thinkers, focused on helping people build a better tomorrow.

Orange and yellow blocks

Career path

We recognize that our technologists benefit from a tailored approach to navigating and advancing their careers in the ways they envision. Our tech career paths are specifically built to support vertical and horizontal trajectories – including Enterprise Leadership (team manager) and Tech Leadership (individual contributor) ‘tracks’ as well as various other career moves.

  • Engineer I (Analyst)
  • Engineer II/III (Associate)
  • Senior Engineer I/II (Vice President)
  • Lead Engineer
    (Vice President)
    Engineering Team Manager
    (Vice President)
  • Principal/Sr. Principal
    Engineer (Director)
    Engineering Team Director/ Sr. Engineering Team Director
  • Managing Director
    Managing Director
  • TECH
    LEADERSHIP
    ENTERPRISE
    LEADERSHIP

Benefits

We care about your overall well-being and design our benefits package to support you in various aspects of your life.

  • Financial well-being

    We offer resources designed to help you build a sound financial future for you and your family, like retirement savings plans and tuition reimbursement.

  • Pay for performance

    Our pay-for-performance philosophy includes a base salary and a discretionary annual bonus.

  • Physical well-being

    Our healthcare plans and resources help you focus on your physical health, so you and your family can feel your best.

  • Emotional well-being

    We support our people's mental health and emotional well-being by providing access to an Employee Assistance Program and a network of Mental Health Ambassadors.

  • Life management

    You'll be able to focus on moments that are important to you with benefits designed to support life in and outside of work with Flexible Time Off, parental leave and more.

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