Associate Director, AI and Agentic Operations

Associate Director AI and Agentic Operations

Location: New York City (Hybrid)

About the Role

Fitch is at an important stage in its AI adoption journey. As AI and Agentic technologies become more embedded in daily workflows, we need to establish the operational foundations that will allow these capabilities to scale responsibly, securely, and effectively.

We are seeking a founding individual contributor to help establish the AI and Agentic Operations capability. In year one, this role will focus on building the program framework, operating model, controls, and foundational processes needed to support AI and agentic AI use cases across the organization. This is not initially a people-management role. Instead, it is a hands-on leadership position for someone who can work across teams, define the function, and put the core capabilities in place.

This role will work closely with the Emerging Technologies, Technology Operations, Information Security, and Collaboration Technologies teams, as well as other relevant stakeholders, to help shape how Fitch monitors, governs, and operationalizes AI solutions in production environments. Over time, as Fitch's use of AI and agentic AI expands, this role has the potential to evolve into leadership of a small specialized team.

The ideal candidate combines strong operational discipline with enough AI fluency to understand how LLM-based applications and agentic workflows behave in production. They can translate ambiguity into processes, controls, and support models, and are comfortable influencing cross-functional stakeholders in a fast-moving environment.

What You Will Do

In the first year, you will be responsible for helping define and establish the AI and Agentic Operations program, including its scope, operating model, and foundational capabilities. Key responsibilities include:

• Partner with Emerging Technologies, Technology Operations, Information Security, and Collaboration Technologies to define the initial AI and Agentic Operations framework
• Define and implement the initial operating model for onboarding, supporting, monitoring, and governing AI and agentic solutions in production.
• Identify and document the core capabilities needed for AI operations, including:
• monitoring and observability
• incident response and escalation
• operational governance
• access and control requirements
• usage and cost visibility
• Develop foundational runbooks, standards, procedures, and support models for AI-enabled services
• Partner with engineering and platform teams to define and implement monitoring, tracing, logging, and alerting patterns for AI applications and agentic workflows, including provider health, tool-call reliability, usage anomalies, and failure handling.
• Establish operational governance processes for AI services, including production readiness reviews, control requirements, exception handling, and ongoing service oversight.
• Help define how AI-related incidents, risks, and service issues should be triaged, escalated, and managed
• Establish reporting approaches for system health, operational risk, adoption, and cost transparency
• Contribute to the design of a scalable support model that can evolve as AI adoption increases
• Identify future staffing, tooling, and process needs to support growth of the function
• Provide recommendations to leadership on how the capability should mature over time, including the potential formation of a small dedicated team

What Success Looks Like in Year One

By the end of the first year, success in this role would include:

• A clearly defined AI and Agentic Operations operating model
• Foundational processes and controls established for AI and agentic AI services
• Strong working partnerships across Emerging Technologies, Technology Operations, Information Security, and Collaboration Technologies
• Initial observability, incident, and governance requirements documented and socialized
• Runbooks and procedures in place for priority AI-enabled services
• A roadmap for scaling the capability as Fitch's AI adoption grows
• A clear recommendation for future team structure, required skills, and next-phase investment

What We’re Looking For

We are looking for someone who is comfortable building a new capability from the ground up, influencing without formal authority, and working across multiple teams in a fast-evolving space.

Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years in one or more of:
  • production operations
  • SRE/platform operations
  • security operations
  • service management
  • infrastructure/platform engineering
• Demonstrated experience designing operational processes for new or complex technologies
• Experience with incident management, change management, service readiness, and production controls
• Working knowledge of AI/LLM systems in production, including common operational risks
• Experience influencing across engineering, security, and business stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience supporting AI applications in production
• Experience with agent frameworks or orchestration platforms
• Experience with model/app telemetry, prompt tracing, or LLM observability
• Experience in regulated environments
• Familiarity with AI governance, model risk, or enterprise control frameworks

Why Join This Role

This is an opportunity to help define a new capability at Fitch at a pivotal moment in our AI journey. You will play a central role in building the operational foundation that will support responsible AI adoption across the firm. This role offers the opportunity to shape the function from the ground up, work closely with key technology partners, and position yourself to lead the capability as it expands over time.

Why Fitch?

At Fitch Group, the combined power of our global perspectives is what differentiates us. Our global network of colleagues comes together to accomplish things greater than they ever could alone.

Every team member is essential to our business and each perspective is critical to our success. We embrace a diverse culture that encourages a free exchange of ideas, guaranteeing your voice will be heard and your work will have an impact, regardless of seniority.

We are building incredible things at Fitch and we invite you to join us on our journey.

Fitch Group is a global leader in financial information services with operations in more than 30 countries. Wholly owned by the Hearst Corporation, we are comprised of three main businesses: Fitch Ratings | Fitch Solutions | Fitch Learning.

For more information please visit our websites:  

Fitch is committed to providing global securities markets with objective, timely, independent and forward-looking credit opinions. To protect Fitch’s credibility and reputation, our employees must take every precaution to avoid conflicts of interests or any appearance of a conflict of interest. Should you be successful in the recruitment process at Fitch Ratings you will be asked to declare any securities holdings and other potential conflicts prior to commencing employment. If you, or your immediate family, have any holdings that may conflict with your work responsibilities, you may be asked to divest yourself of them before beginning work.

Fitch Group is proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status, and other statuses protected by law.

FOR NEW YORK ROLES ONLY:  Expected base pay rates for the role will be between $150,000 and $180,000 per year. Actual salaries will be determined on an individualized basis and may vary based on factors including but not limited to education, training, experience, past performance, and other job-related factors.  Base pay is one part of Fitch’s total compensation package, which, depending on the position, may also include commission earnings, discretionary bonuses, long-term incentives, and other benefits sponsored by Fitch. 

#LI-Group #LI-Hybrid #LI-JO

#LI-Group #LI-Hybrid #LI-JO