Sr. Director, Applied AI

Zapier•San Francisco, CA

39d

About The Position

Zapier is on a mission to make automation accessible to everyone, empowering people and businesses to be more efficient and productive. We’re seeking a Sr. Director of Engineering to lead our AI Orchestration engineering organization. In this role, you’ll manage multiple engineering squads to innovate and deliver AI solutions. You will lead AI engineering execution across the build organization. This role will report to Zapier’s CPTO (Chief Product and Technology Officer) and will partner with the Director of Product - AI. You’re a hands-on technical leader who thrives at the intersection of AI innovation and real-world product impact. You combine a deep understanding of AI and ML systems with the ability to apply them pragmatically to ship customer-facing products that solve meaningful problems. You’re passionate about applied AI engineering. You stay at the forefront of AI development and experimentation, and your peers look to you for insight, vision, and guidance on how to best leverage AI for customers and in day-to-day execution. You're driven to ship user-facing ML and LLM-powered products. You’ve had hands-on experience building and shipping user-facing LLM features, training and tuning models, and integrating them into end-to-end products. Beyond AI, you’re a trusted technical architect who makes pragmatic tradeoffs to deliver quickly and with impact. You think strategically and act pragmatically. You can see where AI is heading and use that vision to guide near-term architecture, tradeoffs, and execution. You’re comfortable with ambiguity and can chart a path forward even when the technology is evolving. You’re customer-obsessed. You deeply understand customer needs and are passionate about delivering high-quality solutions to our customers. You have a passion for building products that delight both internal and external customers, making their jobs easier and more productive. You thrive on working directly with customers and support and customer success teams towards the common outcome. You can develop and sell a vision and strategy to your team and across the org. You have a good sense of vision and strategy, and you’re able to translate that strategy into successful execution through experimentation and continuous improvement. You partner closely with product management, design, marketing, and the support organizations to drive and achieve business outcomes. You’re motivated by shaping what’s next. You want to define how millions of people experience automation in the AI era and help lead Zapier’s next generation of customer-facing products. You are a skilled mentor, coach, and engineering leader who holds a high bar for talent. You have a passion and a track record of mentoring engineers and leaders, while also growing your own skills. You've introduced and broadened engineering practices and enhanced engineering cultures. You hold a high bar for talent and increase talent density within your organization through effective hiring, growing and upskilling your team, and performance management.

Requirements

You’re a hands-on technical leader who thrives at the intersection of AI innovation and real-world product impact. You combine a deep understanding of AI and ML systems with the ability to apply them pragmatically to ship customer-facing products that solve meaningful problems.
You’re passionate about applied AI engineering. You stay at the forefront of AI development and experimentation, and your peers look to you for insight, vision, and guidance on how to best leverage AI for customers and in day-to-day execution.
You're driven to ship user-facing ML and LLM-powered products. You’ve had hands-on experience building and shipping user-facing LLM features, training and tuning models, and integrating them into end-to-end products. Beyond AI, you’re a trusted technical architect who makes pragmatic tradeoffs to deliver quickly and with impact.
You think strategically and act pragmatically. You can see where AI is heading and use that vision to guide near-term architecture, tradeoffs, and execution. You’re comfortable with ambiguity and can chart a path forward even when the technology is evolving.
You’re customer-obsessed. You deeply understand customer needs and are passionate about delivering high-quality solutions to our customers. You have a passion for building products that delight both internal and external customers, making their jobs easier and more productive. You thrive on working directly with customers and support and customer success teams towards the common outcome.
You can develop and sell a vision and strategy to your team and across the org. You have a good sense of vision and strategy, and you’re able to translate that strategy into successful execution through experimentation and continuous improvement. You partner closely with product management, design, marketing, and the support organizations to drive and achieve business outcomes.
You’re motivated by shaping what’s next. You want to define how millions of people experience automation in the AI era and help lead Zapier’s next generation of customer-facing products.
You are a skilled mentor, coach, and engineering leader who holds a high bar for talent. You have a passion and a track record of mentoring engineers and leaders, while also growing your own skills. You've introduced and broadened engineering practices and enhanced engineering cultures. You hold a high bar for talent and increase talent density within your organization through effective hiring, growing and upskilling your team, and performance management.

Responsibilities

Lead Zapier’s AI Orchestration Zone in partnership with Product and Design. Co-own one of the company’s most strategic initiatives, unifying core AI capabilities, driving technical direction, and shaping how AI is applied across Zapier’s products to create differentiated customer experiences.
Prototype and push the boundaries of applied AI. Experiment with new models, tools, and approaches to deliver impactful, production-ready AI features that extend Zapier’s automation capabilities.
Build and mentor a world-class engineering organization. Attract, develop, and retain exceptional talent while fostering a culture of technical excellence, curiosity, and velocity.
Drive a culture of innovation and technical rigor. Balance exploration with execution by turning emerging AI capabilities into scalable, reliable features that create measurable customer impact.
Foster cross-functional alignment. Collaborate with Product, Design, and Go-to-Market partners to define the AI roadmap, ensure execution against company strategy, and translate bold ideas into tangible outcomes.
Champion engineering excellence. Guide architectural decisions, evolve Zapier’s AI infrastructure, and uphold best practices in reliability, scalability, and agile development.
Shape Zapier’s next chapter. Play a key role in defining what AI-powered automation looks like for millions of customers and how Zapier evolves into an intelligent orchestration platform.

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