Distinguished Engineer - AI Advanced Forward Engineering - Senior Manager

About the role

We are seeking a senior, hands-on Distinguished Engineer to lead the delivery of AI-native systems into highly regulated industries such as tax, finance, and risk.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a cross-engagement technical authority, ensuring delivery implementations adhere to architecture intent, safety, and economic constraints in regulated environments.
• Synthesize learnings from multiple delivery cells into durable reference integrations, validated implementations, and reusable patterns that reduce repeated failure modes.
• Work with AI agents to support regulated safe-to-ship decisions by contributing technical evidence and validation inputs.
• Operate as a player-coach, contributing directly to complex system design and implementation while guiding delivery teams toward consistent, repeatable approaches.
• Own the consolidation, prioritization, and communication of cross-cell product signals, converting field observations and client-specific adaptations into evidence-based recommendations, distinguishing them from isolated customer requests.
• Packaging consolidated client patterns into technical business cases, backlog candidates, and platform investment recommendations.
• Participate in shaping sessions, architecture reviews, and prioritization discussions, advocating changes that improve portability, operability, and customer outcomes.

Requirements

• Deep technical expertise across a broad range of technology domains (AI/ML, Software Engineering, Systems Design, Security, Compute, Data, Networking, DevOps).
• Strong product intuition with the ability to transform field observations into executive-ready recommendations, roadmap inputs, and reusable platform capabilities.
• Ability to balance immediate delivery needs with long-term platform evolution, ensuring short-term solutions contribute to enduring enterprise capabilities.
• High credibility with senior engineers, architects, and client stakeholders.
• Pragmatic mindset: balances ideal design with real constraints (regulatory, organizational, environmental).
• Clear communicator who can explain complex technical tradeoffs with evidence and precision.
• Bias toward repeatability and long-term maintainability over one-off solutions.
• Intellectual curiosity and continuous learning orientation in AI-native development and system design.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience delivering complex AI enterprise systems, ideally in regulated industries.
• Deep experience with distributed systems, cloud platforms, and integration-heavy architectures.
• Hands-on experience with modern AI-enabled application stacks (e.g., agentic systems, orchestration frameworks, LLM-backed services).
• Proven ability to operate in forward-deployed or customer-facing engineering roles, owning outcomes under real-world constraints.
• Track record of creating reusable technical patterns or platforms that scale beyond a single engagement.
• Experience collaborating closely with architecture, product, and platform teams.
• Strong understanding of software delivery lifecycle, quality gates, and production readiness in enterprise settings.

Skills and Attributes

• Deep technical expertise across a broad range of technology domains (AI/ML, Software Engineering, Systems Design, Security, Compute, Data, Networking, DevOps).
• Strong product intuition with the ability to transform field observations into executive-ready recommendations, roadmap inputs, and reusable platform capabilities.
• Ability to balance immediate delivery needs with long-term platform evolution, ensuring short-term solutions contribute to enduring enterprise capabilities.
• High credibility with senior engineers, architects, and client stakeholders.
• Pragmatic mindset: balances ideal design with real constraints (regulatory, organizational, environmental).
• Clear communicator who can explain complex technical tradeoffs with evidence and precision.
• Bias toward repeatability and long-term maintainability over one-off solutions.
• Intellectual curiosity and continuous learning orientation in AI-native development and system design.

Benefits

At EY, we offer a comprehensive compensation and benefits package where you’ll be rewarded based on your performance and recognized for the value you bring to the business. The base salary range for this job in all geographic locations in the US is $144,000 to $329,100. The base salary range for New York City Metro Area, Washington State and California (excluding Sacramento) is $172,800 to $374,000. Individual salaries within those ranges are determined through a wide variety of factors including but not limited to education, experience, knowledge, skills and geography.

Pay

The base salary range for this job in all geographic locations in the US is $144,000 to $329,100. The base salary range for New York City Metro Area, Washington State and California (excluding Sacramento) is $172,800 to $374,000. Individual salaries within those ranges are determined through a wide variety of factors including but not limited to education, experience, knowledge, skills and geography.

Schedule

Our expectation is for most people in external, client serving roles to work together in person 40-60% of the time over the course of an engagement, project or year. Under our flexible vacation policy, you’ll decide how much vacation time you need based on your own personal circumstances. You’ll also be granted time off for designated EY Paid Holidays, Winter/Summer breaks, Personal/Family Care, and other leaves of absence when needed to support your physical, financial, and emotional well-being.