AI Lead - Agentic & Conversational AI

IBM

IBM

Software Engineering, Data Science

California, USA · Texas City, TX, USA

Posted on Apr 30, 2026
Introduction

At IBM, we believe technology shapes the world. We’re a catalyst for that innovation. We’re driving change that improves businesses, society, and the human experience. Our Marketing, Communications & Corporate Social Responsibility (MCC) team tells this story. We shape IBM’s brand, capture attention in the market, and share our perspective with clients, partners, the media, and fellow IBMers. On our team, you’ll work with bright, collaborative minds who bring passion and creativity to everything they do. You’ll be part of a culture built on openness, trust, and teamwork. Where your ideas matter and your growth is supported. Join us, and help bring innovation to life.

Your role and responsibilities

We are building a small, elite AI strike team embedded in the Marketing, Communications, and CSR (MCC) Strategy & Operations team. The mission is to move fast, explore what’s possible with agentic and conversational AI, and prove value quickly—before anything is scaled or productionized elsewhere.

This role leads that squad. You will be a hands‑on AI leader with deep expertise in Large Language Models, conversational AI, and agent design. You will guide rapid experiments, build compelling proof‑of‑concepts, and help senior marketing leaders understand how AI can meaningfully change how work gets done.

This is not a traditional AI platform role, a reporting function, or a research lab. It is a high‑judgment, rapid‑execution role optimized for learning, momentum, and decision‑making. (editado)

This Role IS
• A hands‑on leader for a small, elite AI delivery team
• Focused on agentic AI, conversational experiences, and copilots
• Oriented around workflow transformation, not tools for their own sake
• Optimized for speed, experimentation, and proof‑of‑value
• Embedded directly in MCC Strategy & Operations Team
• Closely partnered with senior Marketing, Communications, and CSR leaders

This Role Is NOT
• A dashboarding or reporting function
• A long‑term AI platform or MLOps ownership role
• A research‑only or theory‑heavy AI role
• A large team or program management position

Core Responsibilities
1. Leadership & Execution
• Lead a small, high‑trust AI squad focused on rapid delivery
• Set clear, time‑boxed missions with explicit learning or go/no‑go outcomes
• Balance hands‑on building with technical direction and coaching
• Operate with a “build → test → learn → decide” mindset
• Optimize for progress and insight, not polish or permanence

2. Conversational AI & LLM Expertise (Core Focus)
• Apply deep understanding of LLM capabilities and constraints, including:
• Tokenization and context windows
• Latency and cost tradeoffs
• Failure modes and hallucination risks
• Design multi‑turn, high‑quality conversational experiences
• Manage conversation state, context, and memory deliberately
• Create flows that balance strong UX, deterministic logic, and LLM flexibility

3. Query Understanding, Routing & Agent Selection
• Design systems that translate user input into confident routing decisions
• Apply intent detection, semantic similarity, and hybrid triage approaches
• Decompose complex requests into actionable subtasks
• Select and orchestrate agents based on role, context, confidence, and history
• Build fallback paths, confidence scoring, and uncertainty handling
• Implement guardrails to prevent unsafe, incorrect, or misleading behavior

4. Agent Design & Orchestration Patterns
• Lead hands‑on experimentation with proven agent patterns, including:
• Router / Dispatcher
• Planner–Executor
• ReAct
• Tool‑calling agents
• Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Make pragmatic choices between prompt‑driven and code‑driven controls
• Optimize for predictable, explainable behavior, not full autonomy
• Design agents that are credible and trusted in an enterprise marketing context

5. Prompt Engineering & Rapid Iteration
• Develop advanced system, developer, and user prompt architectures
• Create prompt templates for routing, planning, classification, and tool use
• Manage prompt versioning and experimentation
• Use constraints, grounding, and structured outputs to reduce hallucinations
• Iterate quickly based on live usage and feedback

6. Lightweight Governance & Enterprise Awareness
• Ensure experiments consider safety, bias, explainability, and privacy
• Apply governance thoughtfully, without slowing experimentation
• Implement basic logging, evaluation, and traceability
• Communicate risk, limitations, and tradeoffs clearly to stakeholders

7. Partnership with MCC Leadership
• Translate marketing strategy and business needs into focused AI experiments
• Partner with senior marketing leaders as a thought partner and guide
• Clearly explain what AI can and cannot do—without hype
• Help leaders decide what to pursue further, what to iterate, and what to stop

Leaders are expected to spend time with their teams and clients and therefore are generally expected to be in the workplace a minimum of three days a week, subject to business needs.

Leaders are expected to spend time with their teams and clients and therefore are generally expected to be in the workplace a minimum of three days a week, subject to business needs.
Required education
Bachelor's Degree
Preferred education
Master's Degree
Required technical and professional expertise

8–12+ years in AI, applied ML, software, data, or applied technology roles

· Deep, hands‑on experience with LLMs and conversational AI

· Strong understanding of agentic workflows and orchestration

· Experience operating in ambiguous, fast‑moving environments

· Experience with conversational AI platforms or orchestration tools

· Exposure to RAG systems, semantic search, or vectorization

· Familiarity with enterprise AI considerations and constraints

· Experience with tooling such as watsonx.ai, watsonx Orchestrate, or similar platforms

Mindset & Ways of Working

· Bias toward action, experimentation, and learning

· Comfortable showing early work and iterating in the open

· Strong communicator with both technical and non‑technical audiences

· Confident making tradeoffs between speed, quality, and risk

· Energized by small teams and high accountability

Preferred technical and professional experience

Mindset & Ways of Working

· Bias toward action, experimentation, and learning

· Comfortable showing early work and iterating in the open

· Strong communicator with both technical and non‑technical audiences

· Confident making tradeoffs between speed, quality, and risk

· Energized by small teams and high accountability

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:

- Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being

- Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs

- Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law

- Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals

- Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 21 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role.

IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.