Principal Applied AI Engineer

About the Role The Cognitive AI Solutions team is building the next generation of agentic AI and process intelligence capabilities for the firm. As our platform matures, partner organizations across the bank are engaging with us to bring agentic AI to their highest-impact business problems. We are seeking a Principal Applied AI Engineer to lead a deep technical engagement with a partner business organization (such as banking operations, complaints, or wholesale operations) to apply these advanced AI capabilities to their most critical production workloads. You will sit at the intersection of two organizations: partnering closely with the business domain team, while remaining a senior architect within the Cognitive AI Solutions team. You will be the senior technical bridge—bringing our platform capabilities into production use within the partner domain and bringing the partner team's domain learnings back into the broader Cognitive AI roadmap. This is a hands-on, architecturally weighty role for a senior engineer energized by driving impact at enterprise scale. What You'll Do Partner deeply with the business organization to understand their data, workflows, operator behavior, and where AI can drive measurable improvement in throughput, quality, and customer outcomes. Architect and lead the development of foundational and agentic AI capabilities for the partner domain—applying modern modeling techniques, retrieval-augmented architectures, and agentic patterns at enterprise scale. Design long-running and multi-step agents that reason over rich enterprise context to deliver measurable business outcomes within a regulated environment. Build for production from day one—model evaluation harnesses, drift detection, monitoring, and deterministic deployment patterns that meet the bank's Model Risk Management and AI governance bar. Operate across the data and modeling application boundary—deploying models into the modeling environment while consuming data and context from the regulated data platform, in close coordination with the platform team. Influence architecture across two organizations—serving as the senior AI voice in the partner team's technical forums and as the domain voice in Cognitive AI Solutions architectural discussions. Mentor and uplevel engineers in both organizations on agentic AI, foundational modeling, and applied AI engineering practices. Translate technical progress into executive narrative—supporting demos and presentations to senior leadership and partner stakeholders. Required Qualifications 7+ years of Engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated through one or a combination of the following: work experience, training, military experience, education 7+ years of applied machine learning / AI engineering experience, including substantial production deployments at enterprise scale. Desired Qualifications Demonstrated experience designing and shipping agentic AI capabilities—multi-step reasoning agents, tool-using agents, long-running agents, or comparable production agentic systems. Strong systems engineering instincts—comfortable owning end-to-end model development, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, and iteration. Excellent collaboration, technical communication, and problem-solving skills, with a track record of working across large-scale teams and initiatives to ship real business outcomes. Prior experience in financial services applications (e.g., banking operations, complaints, wholesale operations) or comparable regulated enterprise domains. Experience working under Model Risk Management governance for production model deployment. Background with knowledge graphs, vector retrieval, and retrieval-augmented agentic patterns. Master's or PhD in a relevant field. Experience working in a partner-facing engineering engagement model with business organizations. Job Expectations and Core Values: Be Humble: You're smart yet always interested in learning from others. Work Transparently: You always deal in an honest, direct, and transparent way. Take Ownership: You embrace responsibility and find joy in having the answers. Learn More: You regularly self-educate and improve your skill set. Show Gratitude: You show appreciation and respect to those you work with. Pay Range Reflected is the base pay range offered for this position. Pay may vary depending on factors including but not limited to demonstrated examples of prior performance, skills, experience, or work location. Employees may also be eligible for incentive opportunities. $159,000.00 - $305,000.00 Benefits Wells Fargo provides eligible employees with a comprehensive set of benefits, many of which are listed below. Visit Benefits - Wells Fargo Jobs for an overview of the following benefit plans and programs offered to employees. Health benefits 401(k) Plan Paid time off Disability benefits Life insurance, critical illness insurance, and accident insurance Parental leave Critical caregiving leave Discounts and savings Commuter benefits Tuition reimbursement Scholarships for dependent children Adoption reimbursement Posting End Date: 31 May 2026 *Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants. We Value Equal Opportunity Wells Fargo is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other legally protected characteristic. Employees support our focus on building strong customer relationships balanced with a strong risk mitigating and compliance-driven culture which firmly establishes those disciplines as critical to the success of our customers and company. They are accountable for execution of all applicable risk programs (Credit, Market, Financial Crimes, Operational, Regulatory Compliance), which includes effectively following and adhering to applicable Wells Fargo policies and procedures, appropriately fulfilling risk and compliance obligations, timely and effective escalation and remediation of issues, and making sound risk decisions. There is emphasis on proactive monitoring, governance, risk identification and escalation, as well as making sound risk decisions commensurate with the business unit’s risk appetite and all risk and compliance program requirements. Applicants with Disabilities To request a medical accommodation during the application or interview process, visit Disability Inclusion at Wells Fargo. Drug and Alcohol Policy Wells Fargo maintains a drug free workplace. Please see our Drug and Alcohol Policy to learn more. Wells Fargo Recruitment and Hiring Requirements: a. Third-Party recordings are prohibited unless authorized by Wells Fargo. b. Wells Fargo requires you to directly represent your own experiences during the recruiting and hiring process. #DNP-IND Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a leading financial services company that has approximately $2.1 trillion in assets. We provide a diversified set of banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through our four reportable operating segments: Consumer Banking and Lending, Commercial Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Wealth & Investment Management. Wells Fargo ranked No. 33 on Fortune’s 2025 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights, and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories. Additional information may be found at: wellsfargo.com wellsfargojobs.com For questions on how to search and apply, visit frequently asked questions.