AI Software Engineer Associate Manager (Illinois)

At Allstate, great things happen when our people work together to protect families and their belongings from lifes uncertainties. And for more than 90 years, our innovative drive has kept us a step ahead of our customers evolving needs. From advocating for seat belts, air bags and graduated driving laws, to being an industry leader in pricing sophistication, telematics, and, more recently, device and identity protection.

Job Description

We are seeking a highly experienced and visionary Associate Managing Engineer to lead the design, development, and delivery of our next-generation digital products. In this role, you will architect and implement software solutions with a particular focus on Large Language Models (LLM) and Generative AI integration. You will oversee complex and critical IT initiatives, ensuring quality, scalability, and security within a cloud-native AWS and Azure environments.
This position blends technical depth, people leadership, and strategic influence. You will manage engineering resources, provide architectural and technical solutions, and ensure high performance through regular coaching and performance reviews. You are accountable for the end-to-end success of digital products, owning their performance in production and driving outcomes aligned with key KPIs.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a global engineering team of engineers, overseeing recruitment, onboarding, regular one-on-one meetings, performance reviews, and career development. Inspire and influence peers, direct reports, and stakeholders to achieve business objectives and embrace change.

• Facilitate and participate in agile ceremonies, including daily standups, inception and iteration planning, backlog refinement, and retrospectives. Collaborate closely with product managers to ensure technical input informs product scope and delivery.

• Actively contribute to software development efforts , writing, reviewing, and guiding code to ensure high-quality, scalable, and secure implementations. Balance technical leadership with hands-on coding to drive project success and mentor the team through example.

• Architect and design secure, scalable digital products with a focus on Large Language Models (LLM), Generative AI, and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems. Provide technical leadership and mentorship on best practices in AI, MLOps, Azure AI Services, and software development technologies including Java and SQL.

• Drive cross-functional collaboration and align engineering strategy across product portfolios, partnering with product managers, stakeholders, and other departments to deliver cost-effective technology solutions. Adapt communication style to engage diverse internal and external audiences.

• Act as a subject matter expert in Generative AI, LLM fine-tuning, and cloud-native Azure integration, championing innovation and continuous learning across the organization.

Functional Skills

• Hands-on experience architecting, designing, implementing, and delivering large-scale distributed systems and cloud-native microservices following 12-factor app principles.

• 8+ years developing microservices at scale, preferably using Java and Spring Boot, with strong expertise in design patterns, object-oriented principles, and code quality best practices.

• Ability to build Python-based AI agentic services and integrate them into existing enterprise systems.

• Solid understanding of distributed systems, RESTful APIs, databases, and security best practices.

• Experience designing, implementing, and managing REST APIs including documentation, versioning, service discovery, testing, and API gateway integration.

• Knowledge of web and API security frameworks

• Backend development expertise including relational databases (MS SQL Server), NoSQL (MongoDB, Document DB), vector databases, caching, Kafka, and container orchestration with Kubernetes.

• Strong data modeling and database management skills, including Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS), data governance, and data pipeline design for large-scale ingestion and processing.

• Strong expertise in AWS / Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform is required.

• Experience working in Agile environments, including Extreme Programming (XP).

• UI development experience (preferably React) with knowledge of component architecture and state management

• Proven leadership, stakeholder relationship management, and people management skills.

• Ability to plan, prioritize, and manage software development lifecycles effectively.

• Experience with data fabric architectures enabling unified, secure, and governed access to distributed data assets across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Cloud & AI Platform Expertise

• Strong expertise in Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform including Azure AI Services, Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, and Azure Machine Learning

• Hands-on experience integrating AI/ML microservices into enterprise systems.

• Proficiency with LLM orchestration frameworks such as LangChain or Semantic Kernel.

• Practical experience implementing RAG architectures using vector databases for high-performance data retrieval.

• Experience with MLOps practices for LLMs including model versioning, CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, and production monitoring.

• Skilled in designing and managing data pipelines for LLM applications involving embedding generation, data chunking, indexing, and integration with cloud data stores.

• Experience developing and deploying predictive models and AI-driven data pipelines that ingest, transform, and operationalize data to support real-time and batch predictions.

Education & Experience:

• 4 year Bachelor's Degree

• 8 or more years of experience (Preferred)

Notes:
The preceding description is not designed to be a complete list of all duties and responsibilities. May be required to perform other related duties as assigned. Regular, predictable attendance is an essential function of this job.

Skills

• Cloud Platforms: Microsoft Azure (Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, Azure Machine Learning, ADLS, Data Fabric, Data Pipelines), AWS (AWS DevOps, Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Amazon S3)

• Containerization & Orchestration: Kubernetes, Docker, AWS EKS, Linux

• Programming: Java, Spring Boot, Java Spring, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, React, UI/UX Principles

• DevOps & Automation: Jenkins CI/CD, MLOps, Pipeline Orchestration

• Data & Databases: Database Integration, Relational & NoSQL Databases (DocumentDB, MongoDB)

• AI/ML & LLM Tools: LangChain

• Leadership: Engineering Management, Engineering Mindset, Stakeholder Communication

Skills

AI Frameworks, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Platform, Data Lake, Python (Programming Language), Windows Azure Cloud

Compensation

Compensation offered for this role is 100,000.00 - 170,500.00 annually and is based on experience and qualifications.

The candidate(s) offered this position will be required to submit to a background investigation.

Joining our team isnt just a job its an opportunity. One that takes your skills and pushes them to the next level. One that encourages you to challenge the status quo. One where you can shape the future of protection while supporting causes that mean the most to you. Joining our team means being part of something bigger a winning team making a meaningful impact.

Allstate generally does not sponsor individuals for employment-based visas for this position.

Effective July 1, 2014, under Indiana House Enrolled Act (HEA) 1242, it is against public policy of the State of Indiana and a discriminatory practice for an employer to discriminate against a prospective employee on the basis of status as a veteran by refusing to employ an applicant on the basis that they are a veteran of the armed forces of the United States, a member of the Indiana National Guard or a member of a reserve component.

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