Director, AI Automation Engineer

Pepperjam • Atlanta, GA

18d

About The Position

At Partnerize, we're on a mission to transform the way businesses grow. We've built the leading partnership automation platform that empowers brands to discover, engage, and convert their audiences at scale. From affiliate marketing to influencer collaborations, we help our clients build and manage profitable partnerships that drive real results. We're a team of passionate problem-solvers who are dedicated to helping our clients win in the ever-evolving world of digital marketing. Why Join Us We're looking for passionate, talented people who want to be part of a winning team. At Partnerize, you'll find a culture of collaboration, innovation, and respect. We're guided by our core values, and we're committed to creating an environment where everyone can do their best work. We also offer a competitive salary, generous benefits, and a flexible work environment that allows you to thrive both personally and professionally. If you're ready to grow your career and make a difference, we'd love to hear from you. The things you care about At the heart of our platform, we track performance marketing data and build a number of solutions to turn this data into useful information for our customers. We work with a lot of data, generating over a billion events across our infrastructure daily. We aim to make as much of this data available in real-time as possible, which is no mean feat at this scale! Our software platforms are powered by our REST APIs and everything is developed with an API-first approach. Our Agentic AI framework is hosted in Google Cloud and uses technologies like React.js, Redis, Vertex AI Agent Engine, ADK, LangGraph, and Gemini as our foundational model. We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Director, AI Automation Engineering to serve as the senior-most technical authority and strategic leader for our next-generation AI Co-Pilot initiative. This role reports directly to Data Science leadership and will function as a hands-on, senior Individual Contributor (IC) and manager . This leader will be pivotal in establishing our in-house AI capabilities, owning the technical strategy, and guiding the critical transition from external consultants to a world-class internal team. You will personally design the core architecture and serve as the lead engineer and mentor for the automation team. This is a foundational, hands-on leadership role in our long-term innovation health.

Requirements

• Cloud & AI Expertise: Deep experience in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and expert-level knowledge of Vertex AI (e.g., Vertex AI Pipelines, Model Registry, Feature Store, Agent Engine).
• Agentic Frameworks: Proven hands-on experience architecting and leading the implementation of AI Agent Frameworks using tools like LangGraph, LangChain, or the Google ADK.
• LLM & RAG Mastery: Expert-level understanding of LLM concepts, including planning, tool use, and autonomous task execution, coupled with demonstrable expertise in RAG system design, vector databases (e.g., Redis), and embedding models.
• Core Engineering: Fluency in Python and a strong background in DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) for AI systems.
• Evaluation: Strong command of prompt engineering and generative AI model evaluation metrics (e.g., factuality, coherence).
• Proven Technical Leadership: 7+ years of experience in a senior technical leadership role (e.g., Staff/Principal Engineer, Architect), with a demonstrated ability to own and lead complex, ambiguous projects from concept to production.
• Mentorship: A passion for mentorship and a proven ability to raise the technical bar for an entire team.
• Project Delivery: A strong track record of owning and delivering cross-functional technical projects and platforms.
• Strategic Mindset: Ability to think strategically, balancing long-term technical health with short-term business goals and managing the risks of a rapidly evolving AI landscape.
• Stakeholder Management: Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to manage consultant relationships and translate complex AI concepts to senior business partners.
• Ownership Mentality: A proactive, hands-on, and accountable leader motivated to build robust, scalable, and well-documented systems.

Nice To Haves

• Full-stack capabilities, including experience with Vercel/Next.js/React UIs, are a significant plus.

Responsibilities

• Build and Lead the Team: Mentor, lead and develop a small, high-performing team of AI Automation Engineers, setting the technical direction and fostering a strong engineering culture.
• Manage the Transition: Own the technical knowledge transfer and operational handover from our external consultant partners to your internal FTE team, ensuring project continuity and building long-term, in-house expertise.
• Foster Innovation: Cultivate a culture of rapid experimentation, continuous iteration, and technical excellence. You will contribute to budget planning to enable exploration of novel AI technologies, testing new models, and empowering your team to stay ahead of AI-driven market dynamics.
• Guide the Transition: Lead the technical knowledge transfer and operational handover from our external consultant partners, acting as the primary internal subject matter expert to ensure long-term, in-house success.
• Own the Technical Strategy: Working with our Sr Dr of Data Science & VP of Architecture, serve as the primary technical owner and strategist for the design, construction, and long-term evolution of our enterprise-wide Agentic AI Framework.
• Drive Innovation & Experimentation: Champion a culture of rapid experimentation and technical excellence. You will have access to a dedicated experimentation fund to explore novel AI technologies, prototype new models, and inform our strategic roadmap.
• Provide Technical Mentorship: Act as the senior technical mentor for the AI Automation Engineers, guiding their work, performing advanced architecture and code reviews, and upskilling the team on complex AI/ML concepts.
• Partner with Product to develop the technical elements of roadmap for our agentic AI roadmap and consult with them on feature feasibility and complexity
• Drive Best Practices: Lead the creation, documentation, and enforcement of the "Agent Definition Blueprint"—a comprehensive set of standards for building robust, scalable, secure, and maintainable AI agents.
• Build Agents: Lead the architecture and design of end-to-end RAG pipelines, scalable agent-based systems, and robust integrations. You will personally lead and execute model tuning, fine-tuning of LLMs (like Gemini), and the optimization of RAG architectures for performance, latency, and cost-effectiveness.

Benefits

• Flexible Time Off Policy - Take the time you need
• Enhanced Parental Leave: 16 weeks for birth parent, 8 weeks for non-birth parent at full pay after one year employment
• Robust Company Sponsored Health & Welfare Benefits
• 401k Plan - 4% employee match
• Enhanced Wellness Program including access to EAP, Wellness Coaching & Wellness Fridays program
• Regular company events and activities

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed