Senior Product Engineer / AI Solution Architect
IT STARTS HERE
Santander (www.santander.com) is evolving from a global, high-impact brand into a technology-driven organization, and our people are at the heart of this journey. Together, we are driving a customer-centric transformation that values bold thinking, innovation, and the courage to challenge what’s possible.
This is more than a strategic shift. It’s a chance for driven professionals to grow, learn, and make a real difference.
Our mission is to contribute to help more people and businesses prosper. We embrace a strong risk culture and all our professionals at all levels are expected to take a proactive and responsible approach toward risk management.
Our Chief Data & Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAIO) division is building a world-class AI & Data team to make a difference in the lives of over 170 million people worldwide, through one of the largest banks in the world.
We are undergoing one of the biggest transformations in our history and technology is at the heart of our strategy. Join our team to play a part in one of the most important technological projects for the financial sector in the world.
THE DIFFERENCE YOU MAKE
The Santander Artificial Intelligence Team is seeking a Senior Product Engineer / AI Solution Architect, based in our Madrid office, with global scope.
You will support the design, development and evolution of AI-powered products and technical capabilities that accelerate integration, migration, modernization and application decommissioning across Santander Group. Reporting to the Global Head of AI Integration & Migration, you will act as a hands-on technical profile within a small product-oriented team, helping evolve internal assets such as Alchemy, integrate selected market solutions and translate product needs into scalable, secure and reusable technical components.
This is a technical role with strong product orientation, requiring practical engineering capability, cloud and AI fluency, and the ability to work with vendors, DevOps, AI specialists, architects and country teams to turn opportunities into working solutions.
Key Responsibilities
Support the technical evolution of AI-powered integration and migration products, including internal assets such as Alchemy and complementary market tools, translating roadmap needs, country requirements and product hypotheses into technical options, solution designs, epics, user stories and implementation increments.
Design and build reusable components, APIs, connectors, agentic workflows, evaluation scripts and automation assets that can scale across integration, migration, modernization and application decommissioning use cases.
Apply LLMs, agentic AI, RAG / GraphRAG patterns, code-analysis techniques and workflow automation to practical enterprise scenarios, working with AI Specialist and DevOps profiles to move prototypes toward robust, observable and maintainable capabilities.
Define technical guardrails, engineering practices and quality criteria for reusable AI-enabled tools, ensuring solutions align with Santander technology standards, AI governance principles, cybersecurity requirements and cloud architecture guidelines.
Evaluate vendor solutions, open-source tools and market capabilities, contributing to buy-vs-build assessments based on architectural fit, technical risk, integration complexity, cost drivers and time-to-value, and helping integrate selected capabilities into Santander environments.
Contribute to reference architectures, technical documentation, implementation playbooks and reusable patterns, while supporting issue resolution during PoCs, pilots and early adoption phases and feeding lessons learned back into the product roadmap.
Partner with Product Adoption & Value, Architecture, Cloud, vendors and country technology teams to assess technical feasibility, explain technical options and trade-offs, translate recurring needs into backlog inputs and support technical recommendations and decision materials.
WHAT YOU’LL BRING
Our people are our greatest strength. Every individual contributes unique perspectives that make us stronger as a team and as an organization. We’re enabling teams to go beyond by valuing who they are and empowering what they bring.
The following requirements represent the knowledge, skills, and abilities essential for success in this role. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
Professional Experience
6+ years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, cloud engineering, AI engineering or technical product development in enterprise environments. (Required)
Hands-on experience building or evolving digital products, platforms, automation tools, developer tools or integration capabilities. (Required)
Practical experience with AI-enabled systems, LLM use cases, code analysis, workflow automation, RAG, agents or AI-assisted software engineering. (Required)
Experience working with APIs, enterprise integrations, cloud services, DevOps practices and secure software delivery. (Required)
Experience collaborating with product owners, vendors, architects and delivery teams in complex organizations. (Required)
Experience in banking, financial services or another regulated technology environment. (Preferred)
Exposure to technology modernization, application rationalization, legacy transformation or enterprise-platform migration initiatives. (Preferred)
Experience supporting technical vendor assessments, PoCs or buy-vs-build decisions. (Preferred)
Education
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics or a related field, or equivalent professional experience. (Required)
Relevant certifications in cloud, AI/ML, software engineering, architecture or cybersecurity. (Preferred)
Languages
Full professional proficiency in English for global stakeholder engagement. (Required)
Professional working proficiency in Spanish. (Preferred)
Portuguese. (Preferred)
Hard Skills
Software engineering capability using Python or an equivalent language, APIs, Git, testing, documentation and maintainable code practices. (Required)
AI/LLM engineering knowledge covering LLMs, agents, RAG / GraphRAG, prompt and workflow design, evaluation and orchestration patterns. (Required)
Integration technologies, including REST APIs, connectors, event-driven patterns, authentication and secure integration with enterprise systems. (Required)
DevOps fundamentals, including CI/CD, containers, observability and infrastructure-as-code concepts. (Required)
Cloud platform familiarity, particularly AWS; Azure experience is also valuable. (Preferred)
Familiarity with MCP, Semantic Kernel, LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI or similar agentic frameworks. (Preferred)
Knowledge of knowledge graphs, code parsing, software-modernization tooling or static analysis. (Preferred)
Security, privacy and regulatory awareness in AI-enabled enterprise solutions. (Preferred)
Soft Skills
Strong product mindset, connecting technical choices with adoption, roadmap, value and scalability.
Hands-on ownership and the ability to move from ambiguity to working technical increments.
Clear communication, with the ability to explain complex technical trade-offs to non-specialist stakeholders.
Pragmatism, balancing speed, control, buy-vs-build decisions, innovation and governance.
Strong collaboration skills in small multidisciplinary teams involving vendors, countries and internal platforms.
WE VALUE YOUR IMPACT
Your contribution matters, and it’s recognized. You can expect a fair, competitive reward package that reflects the impact you create and the value you deliver. But we know rewards go beyond numbers.
We enable our teams to go beyond through global opportunities and broad career paths.
Flexibility that works. Enjoy a hybrid working model - some days remote, some days onsite with your team - along with flexible hours.
Learning for life. Access hundreds of courses on our platforms, including exclusive access to our global learning space: Santander Open Academy (www.santanderopenacademy.com).
Competitive rewards. Receive a highly competitive salary with performance-based bonuses, motivating you to keep growing with us.
Financial advantages. Benefit from preferential banking terms, special interest rates on loans, life insurance, and more.
Your health is our priority. Through BeHealthy, our global wellness programme, we promote holistic wellbeing.
We know family is everything. That’s why we offer childcare support and family-friendly programmes tailored to each life stage.
Always by your side. Get access to Santander Contigo, our program for employees and their families offering legal, emotional, and administrative advisory services.
Extra benefits. Gym/WellHub membership, medical centers in some of our facilities, meal subsidy, parking, shuttle service from various points in Madrid, as well as exclusive discounts and offers for Santander employees. And that’s only the beginning - we’ll tell you more when you join!
We’re here to keep you motivated, help you reach your goals, and celebrate your progress, every step of the way.
LOCAL COMPLIANCE
Santander is proud of being an organization where there are equal opportunities regardless of age, gender, disability, civil status, race, religion or sexual orientation. We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible application process for all candidates.
WHAT TO DO NEXT
If this sounds like a role you are interested in, then please apply.
READY TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP IN YOUR JOURNEY?