Director of Applied AI

About the role

The Director of Applied AI will lead the design, development, and deployment of advanced AI solutions for public sector and enterprise customers. You will engage directly with customers to translate mission needs into technical requirements and scalable solutions, guide teams in training and optimizing large language models and multimodal models, oversee technical execution, collaborate with other teams, build a high-performing team, and drive architectural decisions.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in applied machine learning, AI engineering, or related fields, with at least 3 years in a leadership role.
• Proven track record designing and deploying an AI product.
• Strong expertise with LLMs, generative AI, machine learning workflows.
• Hands-on experience building or integrating AI systems for customer-facing applications.
• Proficiency in Python and modern ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, etc.).
• Experience leading cross-functional teams and managing multiple high-impact projects simultaneously.
• Ability to communicate complex technical ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related field.

Preferred Skills

• Master’s or PhD in a technical discipline such as Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, or Applied Mathematics.
• Background in distributed systems, edge computing, or privacy-preserving ML.
• Experience deploying AI models on-device or in constrained compute environments.
• Familiarity with MLOps, data pipelines, and scalable inference architectures.
• Strong understanding of security, compliance, and data governance considerations in enterprise or public sector contexts.
• Able to thrive in ambiguous, fast-paced, high-growth startup environments.