APPLIED AI ENGINEER – Global Investment Firm

J Harlan Group is conducting a search for an APPLIED AI ENGINEER for a world-renowned global investment and technology firm headquartered in NYC.

Technology and advanced computation are foundational to everything this firm does. They are seeking exceptional engineers with strong computer science fundamentals and hands-on experience designing and deploying applied AI and agentic systems. As an Applied AI Engineer, you will help build the next generation of AI-driven applications, agent frameworks, and shared infrastructure—making AI reliable, scalable, and impactful for users across research, technology, trading, and operations.

You will collaborate with highly talented engineers, quants, and domain experts to create sophisticated AI solutions and foundational platforms. This is an opportunity for individuals who enjoy building real production AI systems, experimenting with emerging model capabilities, and shaping firmwide adoption of AI and automation.

The firm values engineers who are agile, intellectually curious, creative, and hands-on, and who thrive in a collegial, fast-paced environment.

PRINCIPAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

As an Applied AI Engineer, you will design, develop, and scale the firm’s AI and agentic capabilities. Responsibilities include:

AI Agent & Infrastructure Engineering

• Develop and maintain shared AI platforms, including agent frameworks, orchestration layers, retrieval systems, and firmwide tools for scalable, safe AI usage.
• Build foundational components such as vector stores, RAG pipelines, reusable “skills,” LLM gateways, evaluation frameworks, and large-scale retrieval infrastructure supporting AI applications across the firm.
• Integrate modern AI tools and state-of-the-art models to create robust, production-grade AI services.

AI Application & Product Development

• Lead and contribute to greenfield AI projects, taking solutions from concept through prototyping to full production deployment.
• Build bespoke AI agents and intelligent applications tailored to researchers, technologists, investment teams, and operations groups.
• Integrate AI agents with diverse internal data sources, knowledge repositories, and documentation systems to deliver context-aware, deeply useful tools.

Experimentation & Applied Research

• Rapidly prototype with emerging AI capabilities, including advanced model types, agentic workflows, and new toolchains.
• Evaluate new techniques—RAG, multi-agent systems, long-context models, model-to-model orchestration—and determine where they deliver meaningful business value.
• Conduct benchmarking, reliability testing, and quantitative evaluation to inform design decisions and ensure robust performance.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with engineering teams, quants, and business partners to understand workflows and identify opportunities for intelligent automation.
• Make AI approachable for a wide range of users by building intuitive abstractions, interfaces, and developer-friendly tooling.

Help define best practices, frameworks, and reusable patterns to scale AI adoption across the organization.

IDEAL CANDIDATE PROFILE:

The ideal candidate combines strong software engineering expertise with deep interest in applied AI systems, agent architecture, and real-world deployment of advanced model capabilities.

Technical Qualifications

• Strong computer science fundamentals—algorithms, systems, data structures.
• Hands-on experience with applied AI: LLMs, embeddings, agent frameworks, retrieval pipelines, or similar systems.
• Experience building production-quality software in Python or other high-level languages.
• Familiarity with cloud model providers, model APIs, and scalable system architectures.

Academic & Analytical Strength

• Historically, successful engineers at the firm excel academically in technical fields such as CS, EE, Math, or Physics.

• Ability to reason quantitatively and analytically, even in unfamiliar domains.

Mindset & Cultural Alignment

• A “builder–tinkerer” mentality: curious, experimental, eager to explore new tools and approaches.
• Thrives in a collaborative, high-intensity, intellectually rigorous environment.
• Strong ownership mentality—motivated to build durable, production systems that create real impact.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work with diverse users, including researchers, engineers, traders, and operations teams.
  

An individual who loves solving deep and complex technical and business problems and wants to have an outsized impact with the services/ products they deliver. An individual with a passion for Applied AI, a high level of intellectual curiosity, a commitment to excellence and an unparalleled drive to deliver world-class services.

If you or anyone in your network would be interested in this opportunity, please send resume to Jerry Goldberg at jgoldberg@jharlan.com or directly contact us at (212) 792-0099

ABOUT THE CLIENT:

The firm is a globally recognized investment and technology firm known for its rigorous, multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving. The firm combines quantitative methods, fundamental research, and advanced computational systems to support its investment strategies.

They have a relentless focus on innovation and integration: innovation in new products, markets and businesses as well as new tools, models and technology management and performance structures; integration of fundamental research, quantitative strategies and technical analysis, all supported by an intensive focus on operational excellence and comprehensive risk management.

The talent and dedication of their people is critical to their success. They offer an opportunity for developing one’s professional career while working with individuals trained in a variety of disciplines in a collegial and dynamic environment. They offer a broad range of competitive benefits on a global basis.

They seek candidates who are high-energy self-starters who want to join an investment management firm on the leading edge of the global markets. The management team needs individuals of the highest professional caliber who are leaders, problem solvers, analytic, detail-oriented, and entrepreneurial. Everyone at the firm works side-by-side with the firm’s senior management in a highly collaborative and charged environment.

Successful candidates are:

• Analytic and relentless in pursuit of the right answer
• Strong communicators who excel at rapid synthesis
• Able to demonstrate sound business judgment
• Able to digest complexity while maintaining an understanding of the “big picture” of business needs
• Team players who are energized by a collaborative enterprise

The firm’s employees maintain the highest professional and ethical standards. The firm has earned a reputation for honesty, fair dealing, and transparency in a competitive industry. They believe that these standards are the foundation for superior investment performance and are critical to delivering performance to clients

SALARY RANGE: The expected annual base salary for this position is $200,000 to $250,000. Their compensation and benefits package include variable compensation in the form of a year-end bonus, guaranteed in the first year of hire, and benefits including medical and prescription drug coverage, 401(k) contribution matching, wellness reimbursement, family building benefits, and a charitable gift match program.