AI Engineer (Full Stack Engineering Lead)

About the role

The AI Engineer (Full Stack Engineering Lead) is a hands-on Tech Lead responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of cloud-native and modern software solutions, increasingly built in partnership with AI coding agents and copilots. The role provides technical direction, mentors junior engineers, reviews team deliverables, clears delivery impediments, and works closely with stakeholders to translate business priorities into executable engineering outcomes. Success depends on strong upfront architecture, design, and specification skills, as well as the ability to articulate intent, constraints, and acceptance criteria clearly so that AI systems and human collaborators can execute reliably.

Key responsibilities

• Apply AI-first engineering practices across discovery, requirements, design, development, testing, deployment, operations, and continuous improvement.
• Create clear functional and technical specifications, architecture decisions, NFRs, design notes, and acceptance criteria that guide high-quality delivery.
• Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain modern full-stack, cloud-native applications that are secure, scalable, resilient, observable, and maintainable.
• Use AI responsibly to accelerate engineering productivity while retaining accountability for code quality, design correctness, testing, security, and production readiness.
• Provide day-to-day technical leadership by setting direction, guiding design and implementation decisions, and ensuring the team follows agreed engineering standards.
• Coach and mentor junior engineers through pairing, constructive feedback, knowledge sharing, and support for their technical development.
• Review work completed by the team including solution designs, code, tests, documentation, and release readiness and provide timely, actionable feedback.
• Identify, resolve, or escalate technical and delivery impediments so that the team can maintain progress and meet commitments.
• Partner with product owners, architects, security, operations, and business stakeholders to translate business outcomes into executable engineering plans.
• Investigate and resolve production incidents, service requests, and performance issues while driving automation, simplification, and continuous improvement.

About you

• Bachelor of Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or equivalent experience.
• Minimum 10 years of experience developing enterprise applications using modern full-stack, API, data, and cloud technology capabilities.
• 3 years of experience as a tech lead is preferred.
• Hands-on experience with AI-first engineering practices and AI-assisted software delivery in a modern engineering environment.
• Experience with GitHub Enterprise and GitHub Copilot; exposure to Microsoft AI capabilities such as Azure AI Foundry, Copilot SDK, Semantic Kernel, AI agents, RAG, and LLM-based application patterns are preferred.
• Experience developing secure, mission-critical, cloud-native applications in complex or regulated enterprise environments.
• Proficiency in Agile, CI/CD, DevOps, automated testing, shift-left engineering, domain-driven design, API-first development, and modern architecture patterns.
• Ability to express requirements, design intent, constraints, trade-offs, and expected outcomes clearly for people and AI-assisted platforms.
• Proven ability to work effectively with global, multicultural, cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated ability to drive technical initiatives, align teams around clear outcomes, and resolve complex technical challenges.

About us

MetLife is a leading global life insurance and employee benefit company, with 90 million customers in over 60 countries. We are leading the global transformation of an industry we've long defined. At MetLife, you'll have accountability for end-to-end solutions, working with other talented engineers who share your passion for technology, distinctive digital experiences and customer-driven innovation. From implementing new platforms to migrating applications to the cloud, you'll be instrumental in creating technologies built to scale. We hire smart, creative, collaborative people who are kind to each other. We embrace diversity, equity and inclusion. This allows us to think bigger, experiment more, innovate faster, and win together.