Sr. Director Applied Research & Innov.

eBay • Toronto, ON

7d

About The Position

At eBay, we're more than a global ecommerce leader — we’re changing the way the world shops and sells. Our platform empowers millions of buyers and sellers in more than 190 markets around the world. We’re committed to pushing boundaries and leaving our mark as we reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts.
Our customers are our compass, authenticity thrives, bold ideas are welcome, and everyone can bring their unique selves to work — every day. We're in this together, sustaining the future of our customers, our company, and our planet.
Join a team of passionate thinkers, innovators, and dreamers — and help us connect people and build communities to create economic opportunity for all.
eBay is seeking an accomplished and forward-thinking Sr. Director of Applied Research - AI, Research, & Innovation to lead the design, development, and evolution of our multi-agent AI platform and ecosystem. This leader will define and drive the strategy for how eBay builds, scales, and operationalizes autonomous agent systems that power a new generation of AI-driven commerce experiences - from shopping assistance to developer-facing agent platforms. Reporting to the Chief AI Officer, this role will partner closely with product, research, infrastructure, and developer experience teams to bring agentic AI capabilities from concept to production across eBay’s global technology organization.
The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in AI/ML infrastructure, agentic systems, reinforcement learning, and LLM fine-tuning, along with a proven track record of building scalable platforms, fostering innovation, and leading globally distributed engineering and applied science teams.

Requirements

• PhD in Applied Research, Machine Learning, or related technical field.
• Extensive experience in AI, ML, and distributed systems, and in senior engineering leadership roles managing large-scale AI or infrastructure teams.
• Proven expertise in multi-agent systems, LLM-based orchestration, and reinforcement learning and/or NLP, Semantic graphs.
• Deep understanding of AI/ML infrastructure—training, inference, pipelines, and orchestration frameworks.
• Experience building developer platforms with self-serve APIs, SDKs, and robust documentation.
• Strong background in cloud and hybrid infrastructure, GPU/TPU scaling, and performance optimization.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex AI concepts into practical, high-impact solutions.
• Proven leadership in hiring, developing, and scaling high-performing technical teams across global hubs.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with fine-tuning and deployment of large foundation models (LLMs, multimodal models).
• Track record of open-source contributions or publications in AI/ML or multi-agent systems.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute eBay’s Agentic AI strategy and roadmap.
• Build and lead a world-class team of engineers and applied scientists developing scalable multi-agent and autonomous AI systems.
• Partner across product, infrastructure, and research teams to translate innovation into production-grade AI capabilities.
• Lead platform development for model training, orchestration, reasoning, and reinforcement learning workflows.
• Develop robust developer experiences - APIs, SDKs, and self-serve tools to enable agent creation and deployment.
• Represent eBay’s AI strategy internally and externally, fostering innovation and collaboration across global hubs.

Benefits

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What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree