Director, AI Engineering (Data Science)

TL;DR

Director, AI Engineering (Data Science): Leading the full lifecycle of AI model development and setting technical strategy for enterprise clients with an accent on custom transformer architectures and MLOps. Focus on designing novel attention mechanisms, scaling model production, and translating complex AI capabilities into business value for C-suite stakeholders.

Location: Columbia, MD

Salary: $180,000 - $240,000

Company

hirify.global is a premier AI services provider dedicated to aligning human expertise with artificial intelligence to solve significant challenges for its clients.

What you will do

• Lead the full lifecycle of AI model development, from conceptual design to production deployment.
• Architect custom transformer models for sequence modeling, propensity scoring, and churn prediction.
• Mentor and manage teams of AI/ML engineers, senior data scientists, and MLOps engineers.
• Translate ambiguous business problems into well-scoped AI initiatives for enterprise clients.
• Establish production standards for model deployment, monitoring, and governance on cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Present AI strategy and roadmaps to C-suite and senior client stakeholders.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in data science and machine learning, with 3–5 years in a leadership role.
• Hands-on expertise in designing and training custom transformer architectures from scratch.
• Proficiency in Python and core libraries: PyTorch, TensorFlow, HuggingFace, and scikit-learn.
• Experience with large-scale data platforms such as Spark, BigQuery, Snowflake, or Databricks.
• Command of end-to-end MLOps, including CI/CD for ML, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Must be based in or able to work from Columbia, MD.

Nice to have

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field.
• Background in privacy-preserving ML (federated learning, differential privacy).
• Knowledge of Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) for network topology analysis.
• Published research in major venues like NeurIPS, ICML, KDD, or RecSys.
• Experience with real-time inference and streaming ML pipelines (Kafka, Flink).

Culture & Benefits

• Competitive benefits program including medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Financial well-being support through 401K and spending accounts.
• Paid time off (PTO) and paid holidays.
• Commuter benefits, life insurance, and disability coverage.
• High-impact role with significant organizational influence and autonomy.