Director of Applied AI

The role

The Director of Applied AI will lead a cross-functional team of engineers and applied scientists to design, develop, and deploy advanced AI solutions for enterprise customers. This role involves architecting approaches using distributed AI infrastructure and translating customer needs into scalable solutions.

What you will do

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of applied AI systems built on webAI’s distributed AI platform.
• Engage directly with commercial customers to translate mission needs into technical requirements and scalable solutions.
• Guide teams in training, fine-tuning, optimizing, and evaluating large language models and multimodal models.
• Oversee technical execution across multiple parallel projects.
• Collaborate with Infrastructure, Platform Engineering, and Product teams.
• Build and mentor a high-performing applied AI team.
• Drive architectural decisions related to edge inference, distributed processing, privacy-preserving AI, and real-time performance.
• Establish rigorous evaluation methodologies, benchmarks, and validation frameworks.
• Identify emerging trends, technologies, and research areas.
• Present complex technical concepts to leaders, customers, and stakeholders.

Required qualifications

• Must code
• 8+ years of experience in applied machine learning, AI engineering, or related fields
• 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

Nice to have

• 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
• Ability to thrive in ambiguous, fast-paced, high-growth startup environments

Benefits

• Competitive salary and performance-based incentives
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision benefits package
• High-deductible HSA option with company contribution
• 401k match (US-based only)
• Flexible PTO Policy
• Parental leave for eligible employees
• Continuing education support
• Basic, company-paid life insurance
• Supplemental life insurance
• Company-paid short and long term disability
• Free parking for in-office employees

About the company

webAI is establishing the first distributed AI infrastructure dedicated to personalized AI. The company aims to build an end-to-end platform where data and intellectual property remain private through distributed processing at the edge.