AI/ML engineer - Lead

this is a contract to hire position with a major financial firm. Location: Silicon Valley, California or Newark, NJ Lead Machine Learning Engineer: As a Lead, Machine Learning Engineer, you will be leading the engineering of agentic AI systems, and partner with Data Scientists, Data Engineers, Data Analysts, DevSecOps and other professionals helping to implement traditional models and agentic AI systems to deliver stability, producibility, scalability and integration with other products and services. You will also architect AI capabilities that combine large language models with semantic knowledge layers, knowledge graphs, ontologies, and deterministic reasoning to support accurate, explainable and governable business decisions. You will implement capabilities to solve sophisticated business problems, deploy innovative products, services, and experiences to delight our customers! In addition to advanced technical expertise and experience, you will bring excellent problem solving, communication and teamwork skills, along with agile ways of working, strong business insights, an inclusive leadership attitude and a continuous learning focus on all that you do.