Frontier AI Assistant Director
About the role
At EY, we're all in to shape your future with confidence. We'll help you succeed in a globally connected powerhouse of diverse teams and take your career wherever you want it to go. Join EY and help to build a better working world.
About the Next Frontier: Applied Innovation's Next Frontier focuses on emerging technologies, including Physical AI, Quantum Computing, and Frontier AI, amongst others such as Cyber Frontier. This initiative translates advanced capabilities into measurable outcomes, helping clients and EY teams unlock new opportunities through technology-driven capabilities.
The opportunity: Frontier AI bridges emerging AI capabilities and evolving client needs. We identify high-potential innovations in the market and connect experts across EY and the ecosystem; where breakthroughs meet customer needs, we incubate, validate and deliver new scalable capabilities to the firm and its clients. We are builders, strategists, and innovators focused on turning rapidly evolving AI technologies into trusted business outcomes through evidence, collaboration, and responsible innovation.
The Frontier AI Assistant Director helps identify, shape, and scale emerging AI opportunities across EY. Working closely with service lines, sectors, alliances, and innovation teams, this role connects evolving client needs with emerging technologies and leads initiatives from experimentation through capability development. Areas of focus may include trusted and open-weight models, AI-native software delivery, enterprise knowledge and context systems, specialized AI, and agentic systems.
Responsibilities
- Monitor developments across AI, both externally and across EY, to identify emerging capabilities, market signals, and opportunities relevant to clients and firm strategy.
- Build relationships across service lines, sectors, alliances, regions, and external ecosystems to understand evolving business needs and technology opportunities.
- Identify, shape, and lead Frontier AI initiatives that connect emerging technologies with client challenges and strategic priorities.
- Continuously experiment with emerging technologies to develop first-hand understanding of their capabilities, limitations, and potential applications.
- Design and build experiments, prototypes, and proof-of-concepts to validate opportunities, evaluate technologies, and accelerate learning.
- Assess opportunities across business value, technical feasibility, enterprise readiness, risk, and adoption potential.
- Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to validate, refine, and advance new capabilities.
Skills
- Deep curiosity about the evolving AI landscape and a demonstrated ability to identify meaningful developments before they become mainstream.
- Ability to connect emerging technologies with client needs, business opportunities, and strategic priorities.
- Broad technical foundation with the credibility to evaluate technologies, challenge assumptions, and engage deeply with technical practitioners.
- Actively builds, prototypes, and experiments with emerging technologies as part of an ongoing hands-on practice.
- Learns through doing, rapidly testing ideas and developing first-hand perspectives on new capabilities.
- Comfortable operating in ambiguity, using experimentation and evidence to inform decisions and recommendations.
- Ability to engage effectively with business leaders, client-serving teams, technologists, startups, and alliance partners to identify opportunities and shape initiatives.
- Translates technical developments into business implications, strategic recommendations, and actionable next steps.
- Strong communication, influence, and storytelling skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
- Experience bringing together diverse stakeholders to advance new ideas from concept to implementation.
- Builds relationships across internal and external innovation ecosystems to accelerate learning and capability development.
- Creates reusable assets, frameworks, accelerators, and playbooks that enable successful innovations to scale.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Business, or a related field. Advanced degree preferred.
- 8+ years of experience in software engineering, AI, machine learning, product development, solution architecture, technical consulting, technical program management, innovation, or related technology disciplines.
- Demonstrated history of hands-on experimentation, prototyping, or building with emerging technologies as part of an ongoing practice of learning and exploration.
- Experience leading complex technology initiatives that span technical, business, and stakeholder considerations.
- Experience evaluating emerging technologies and translating them into business value, technical solutions, or new capabilities.
- Preferred backgrounds include technology startups, technical program management, solution engineering, customer engineering, product development, technical consulting, innovation organizations, or related roles.
Benefits
The compensation ranges below are provided in order to comply with United States pay transparency laws. Other geographies will follow their local salary guidelines, which may not be a direct conversion of published US salary ranges.
At EY, we harness our collective strength to empower you to shape your future with confidence through professional growth, personal fulfillment and an inclusive culture.
We offer a comprehensive compensation and benefits package where you'll be rewarded based on your performance and recognized for the value you bring to the business.
Base salary ranges
- New York City, Boston, and Washington DC Metro Areas, Washington State, and Southern California offices – $176,000 to $299,200
- Bay Area California offices – $183,300 to $311,700
- All other offices locations in the US, including Sacramento – $146,700 to $274,300
Individual salaries within these ranges are determined through a wide variety of factors including but not limited to education, experience, knowledge, skills and geography.
Total Rewards package
- Medical and dental coverage
- Pension and 401(k) plans
- Wide range of paid time off options
Under our flexible vacation policy, you'll decide how much vacation time you need based on your own personal circumstances. You'll also be granted time off for designated EY Paid Holidays, Winter/Summer breaks, Personal/Family Care, and other leaves of absence when needed to support your physical, financial, and emotional well-being.