Incubation Foundry Director

Qualtrics • Provo, UT

7h • Hybrid

About The Position

At Qualtrics, we create software the world’s best brands use to deliver exceptional frontline experiences, build high-performing teams, and design products people love. But we are more than a platform—we are the creators and stewards of the Experience Management category serving over 18K clients globally. Building a category takes grit, determination, and a disdain for convention—but most of all it requires close-knit, high-functioning teams with an unwavering dedication to serving our customers.

When you join one of our teams, you’ll be part of a nimble group that’s empowered to set aggressive goals and move fast to achieve them. Strategic risks are encouraged and complex problems are solved together, by passing the mic and iterating until the best solution comes to light. You won’t have to look to find growth opportunities—ready or not, they’ll find you. From retail to government to healthcare, we’re on a mission to bring humanity, connection, and empathy back to business. Join over 5,000 people across the globe who think that’s work worth doing.
We are seeking a visionary Director to lead and grow our Incubation Foundry team, responsible for facilitating rapid, disciplined exploration of strategic imperatives that lead to new products and full-fledged lines of business. At Qualtrics, we created the experience management category, and now we’re building its next generation as AI fundamentally reshapes expectations for what it means to deliver a great experience. This role is critical to fueling that work across the company, providing the programmatic lens and capabilities for forward engineering, discovery and validation, and co-innovation across functional disciplines. If you are energized by the entrepreneurial drive to reimagine, push boundaries, and unlock new business opportunities, this role is for you.

Requirements

• Direct experience with programmatic incubation, either as a participant or operator, ideally focused in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field.
• 10+ years of experience in machine learning, AI research, or data science, including 7+ years in leadership roles managing innovation-focused teams.
• Proven success incubating and launching experimental ML/AI projects that matured into impactful products.
• Deep knowledge of ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch), prototyping tools, and scalable data infrastructure.
• Strong strategic vision combined with hands-on experience delivering rapid, iterative experimentation in ambiguous contexts.
• Exceptional communication skills and a demonstrated ability to inspire, influence, and align diverse stakeholder groups, including customers
• Experience managing forward deployed engineering teams
• Experience managing cross-functional teams

Responsibilities

• Lead a dynamic, cross-disciplinary incubation services team tasked with facilitating the rapid, disciplined discovery and validation of cutting-edge machine learning and AI innovations aligned with Qualtrics’ strategic priorities.
• Drive the incubation pipeline through all stages of maturity, from intake to inception to product/market fit to repeatability and scalability.
• Establish lean, agile discovery and experimentation processes that accelerate the path from idea to validated minimum viable product (MVP) and graduated product teams.
• Cultivate strong collaboration with core engineering, product management, design, data science, marketing, business development, and go-to-market organizations to ensure a seamless transition of successful incubated technologies into general availability.
• Drive culture and mindset that encourages curiosity, experimentation, and rapid learning while balancing risk and business value.
• Build strategic roadmaps and prioritize initiatives that explore breakthrough AI technologies with potential for significant competitive advantage.
• Drive alignment between research breakthroughs and product execution by fostering a strong partnership between R&D, engineering, and go-to-market teams, ensuring rapid delivery of innovative AI solutions that create measurable business impact.
• Own end-to-end leadership of the Incubation Foundry team’s vision, strategy, and execution, driving discovery efforts that identify and validate novel approaches and technologies.
• Foster a highly collaborative environment that encourages creative problem solving across AI research, prototyping, and product integration disciplines.
• Establish and drive co-innovation programs to engage with early adopter customers and partners.
• Oversee experimental design, rapid prototyping, and iterative testing cycles, deploying prototypes and pilots to showcase potential impact.
• Evaluate technical feasibility, scalability, and business viability of cutting-edge AI concepts and champion the strongest candidates for broader adoption.
• Represent Qualtrics in external AI innovation communities, conferences, and partnerships to stay ahead of industry trends and attract top technical talent.

Benefits

• $1800 Experience bonus to be used for an “Experience” of your choosing
• QMentorship Program matches you with a mentor inside Qualtrics to get meaningful coaching from someone outside your team.
• Amazing QGroup Communities; MOSAIQ, Green Team, Qualtrics Pride, Q&Able, Qualtrics Salute, and Women’s Leadership Development, which exist as places for support, allyship, and advocacy.
• The Qualtrics Hybrid Work Model: While this role is exempt from working in office, our hybrid work model remains elegantly simple for the rest of the company: we all gather in the office three days a week; Mondays and Thursdays, plus one day selected by your organizational leader. These purposeful in-person days in thoughtfully designed offices help us do our best work and harness the power of collaboration and innovation. For the rest of the week, work where you want, owning the integration of work and life. #remote
• For full-time positions, this pay range is for base per year; however, base pay offered within this range may vary depending on location, job-related knowledge, education, skills, and experience. A sign-on bonus and restricted stock units may be included in an employment offer. Full-time employees are eligible for medical, dental, vision, life and disability, 401(k) with match, paid time off, a wellness reimbursement, mental health benefits, and an experience bonus. For a detailed look at our benefits, visit Qualtrics US Benefits.

What This Job Offers

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