Director of Technology and AI

Fireclay Tile • Davis, CA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

Fireclay is seeking a Director of Technology and AI to lead the AI rollout across the entire company, integrating AI into the daily workflows of all knowledge workers. This role involves hands-on engineering leadership, applied AI work, and owning the enterprise architecture, security, governance, and process controls for AI at scale. The position requires a builder who can operate at startup speed, shipping solutions quickly while maintaining high standards for security, quality, and measurable impact. The Director will work closely with the VP of Technology and CEO to shape the future of Fireclay's AI-driven technology and lead a small team of developers.

Requirements

• Personally written and shipped production code, and still wants to.
• Uses AI coding tools every day and can take an application from idea to production in days.
• Thrives at startup speed, energized by autonomy, comfortable with ambiguity, and bias toward shipping and learning.
• Deep experience with modern AI application development: agents, MCP and tool use, automations, model selection, evaluation, retrieval, prompt and workflow design, and observability.
• Designed enterprise architecture, security, and governance for AI or data systems.
• Knows how to give teams powerful tools while controlling access, protecting data, and keeping humans in the loop where it matters.
• Hands-on experience across a stack like Salesforce, Google Cloud, Shopify, and a cloud data warehouse such as Snowflake.
• Cares more about how systems connect than about any single platform.
• Strong mentor to junior developers, growing engineers early in their careers through code review, pairing, clear standards, and stretch assignments.
• Teaches developers to use AI well, to understand the business behind the ticket, and to own their work end to end.
• Can lead developers while staying close enough to the work to make good technical and product decisions.
• Brings conviction and humility: strong standards, direct communication, curiosity, and a willingness to change your mind when the evidence changes.

Nice To Haves

• Shipped something small and useful within the first 30 days.
• Presented an AI rollout plan, enterprise AI architecture and governance framework, capability assessment, and a prioritized 12-month plan within the first 60 days.
• Selected two or three high-value use cases with clear owners, baselines, ROI hypotheses, and delivery plans within the first 60 days.
• Shipped at least one secure, measurable production workflow or application within the first 90 days.
• Put in place an AI investment scorecard, a teammate enablement rhythm, a mentoring plan for each developer, and the technical standards required to scale responsibly within the first 90 days.
• Created visible, credible impact where every team is using AI daily in its core work, backed by governed, secure systems, resulting in measurable cost savings, productivity gains, better decisions, faster developer throughput, or new revenue within the first year.
• Developers have grown noticeably under leadership, and Fireclay has a clear, shared architecture for an AI-first future within the first year.
• Every meaningful AI investment shows a clear return or a credible, measurable path to one.
• Experience building or shipping something fast.
• Sanitized example of AI use in workflow is welcome; do not share confidential customer, employer, or personal information.

Responsibilities

• Own the AI rollout across every Fireclay team, from production and supply chain to customer service, marketing, sales, and finance.
• Partner with the VP of Technology and the CEO to define the next vision of Fireclay's technology, built on AI.
• Design and run the enterprise architecture for AI: how agents, skills, and applications connect to Salesforce, Google Cloud, Shopify, and Snowflake, and how data flows between them.
• Own AI security, governance, and process control: access and permissions, data privacy, human review, audit trails, observability, and clear ownership for every production workflow.
• Lead, mentor, and grow Fireclay's development team, and raise the bar for how we build.
• Learn Fireclay deeply, from customer journey and order flow through manufacturing, fulfillment, installation, and support, and find the real points of friction, delay, rework, and opportunity.
• Build and ship AI-enabled workflows and applications quickly, often in days, that improve productivity, decision quality, customer experience, revenue, or cost.
• Identify and pursue customer-facing AI opportunities that make it easier to discover, design, purchase, receive, and install Fireclay products.
• Run a disciplined intake and prioritization process.
• Make the right build-versus-buy decisions.
• Use external tools, partners, and emerging models where they create leverage, without creating a fragile or ungoverned stack.

Benefits

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• 4% 401(k) match
• PTO (non-exempt) or FTO (exempt)
• Sick time
• Other perks
• Total compensation package may also include other elements, stock options, and discretionary bonus.

What This Job Offers

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