Distinguished Engineer - Responsible AI

Location: This role requires associates to be in-office 3 days per week, fostering collaboration and connectivity, while providing flexibility to support productivity and work-life balance. This approach combines structured office engagement with the autonomy of virtual work, promoting a dynamic and adaptable workplace. Alternate locations may be considered if candidates reside within a commuting distance from an office. 

Please note that per our policy on hybrid/virtual work, candidates not within a reasonable commuting distance from the posting location(s) will not be considered for employment, unless an accommodation is granted as required by law.

The Distinguished Engineer - Responsible AI leads the design, development, governance, and deployment of enterprise-scale AI systems with Responsible AI at the core. This role sets the technical strategy, architecture patterns, and engineering practices needed to build AI solutions that are scalable, secure, reliable, explainable, compliant, and aligned with enterprise Responsible AI principles. As a senior technical leader, the Distinguished Engineer - RAI partners with engineering, data science, security, legal, compliance, product, and business teams to ensure AI systems include appropriate controls for fairness, transparency, privacy, safety, robustness, accountability, and human oversight.

How you will make an impact: 

•    Define enterprise-wide technical direction for Responsible AI engineering, including architecture patterns, integration standards, model risk controls, evaluation frameworks, guardrails, observability, and reusable platform capabilities.
•    Partner with engineering, data science, legal, compliance, security, privacy, and risk teams to translate Responsible AI principles, regulatory expectations, and enterprise policies into practical technical controls.
•    Develop reusable Responsible AI platform services, reference architectures, tooling, and implementation patterns to accelerate safe and consistent adoption of AI across the enterprise.
•    Architect and deliver scalable, resilient AI solutions leveraging technologies such as agentic systems, large language models (LLMs), distributed systems, and event-driven architectures.
•    Define and operationalize metrics for AI system quality, trustworthiness, safety, fairness, reliability, performance, and business impact.
•    Lead AI-driven modernization of legacy systems through automated code transformation, service decomposition, and continuous optimization.
•    Establish technical standards, governance frameworks, and best practices for AI systems, including monitoring, evaluation, and responsible AI.
•    Provide technical leadership and mentorship while influencing enterprise technology decisions through deep expertise and hands-on engineering.

Minimum Requirements:

Requires a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field and a minimum of 15 years of experience in software engineering, expertise in distributed systems and large-scale architecture, or any combination of education and experience, which would provide an equivalent background. Experience delivering production-grade AI/ML systems at scale, building agentic systems or complex LLM-based applications, modernizing large, complex legacy systems, and delivering high-quality systems also required. Strong programming expertise in Python, Java, or similar required. Experience with APIs, microservices, and event-driven architectures, cloud platforms, and CI/CD and DevOps practices required.

Preferred Skills, Capabilities and Experiences: 

•    Ability to translate policy, risk, compliance, legal, privacy, and security requirements into practical engineering patterns and platform capabilities.
•    Experience implementing AI governance and control frameworks, including model evaluation, validation, documentation, monitoring, auditability, model risk management, and regulatory compliance.
•    Demonstrated ability to influence senior technical and business stakeholders, establish enterprise standards, mentor engineering leaders, and drive adoption of modern Responsible AI practices.
•    Hands-on experience with LLM evaluation, prompt safety, hallucination mitigation, content safety, toxicity detection, jailbreak resistance, red-teaming, guardrails, and AI observability.
•    Strong programming expertise in Python, Java, or similar.
•    Deep experience with APIs, microservices, and event-driven architectures, cloud platforms, and CI/CD and DevOps practices.

For candidates working in person or virtually in the below location, the salary* range for this specific position is $254,584 to $381,876.  

Location: Chicago IL   

In addition to your salary, Elevance Health offers benefits such as a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). The salary offered for this specific position is based on a number of legitimate, non-discriminatory factors set by the Company.  The Company is fully committed to ensuring equal pay opportunities for equal work regardless of gender, race, or any other category protected by federal, state, and local pay equity laws.     

* The salary range is the range Elevance Health in good faith believes is the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting. This range may be modified in the future and actual compensation may vary from posting based on geographic location, work experience, education, and/or skill level. Even within the range, the actual compensation will vary depending on the above factors as well as market/business considerations. No amount is wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable under the terms and conditions of the applicable policies and plans. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole discretion, consistent with the law.
 

Please be advised that Elevance Health only accepts resumes for compensation from agencies that have a signed agreement with Elevance Health. Any unsolicited resumes, including those submitted to hiring managers, are deemed to be the property of Elevance Health.

Who We Are

Elevance Health is a health company dedicated to improving lives and communities – and making healthcare simpler. We are a Fortune 25 company with a longstanding history in the healthcare industry, looking for leaders at all levels of the organization who are passionate about making an impact on our members and the communities we serve.

How We Work

At Elevance Health, we are creating a culture that is designed to advance our strategy but will also lead to personal and professional growth for our associates. Our values and behaviors are the root of our culture. They are how we achieve our strategy, power our business outcomes and drive our shared success - for our consumers, our associates, our communities and our business.

We offer a range of market-competitive total rewards that include merit increases, paid holidays, Paid Time Off, and incentive bonus programs (unless covered by a collective bargaining agreement), medical, dental, vision, short and long term disability benefits, 401(k) +match, stock purchase plan, life insurance, wellness programs and financial education resources, to name a few.

Elevance Health operates in a Hybrid Workforce Strategy. Unless specified as primarily virtual by the hiring manager, associates are required to work at an Elevance Health location at least once per week, and potentially several times per week. Specific requirements and expectations for time onsite will be discussed as part of the hiring process.

The health of our associates and communities is a top priority for Elevance Health. We require all new candidates in certain patient/member-facing roles to become vaccinated against COVID-19 and Influenza. If you are not vaccinated, your offer will be rescinded unless you provide an acceptable explanation. Elevance Health will also follow all relevant federal, state and local laws.

Elevance Health is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, citizenship status, color, creed, disability, ethnicity, genetic information, gender (including gender identity and gender expression), marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status or any other status or condition protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws. Applicants who require accommodation to participate in the job application process may contact elevancehealthjobssupport@elevancehealth.com for assistance.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws, including, but not limited to, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance and the California Fair Chance Act.

Prospective employees required to be screened under Florida law should review the education and awareness resources at HB531 | Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.