Sr. Director, Forward Deployed Engineering (AI)

Location: New York, NY, United States; regional scope covers the Eastern United States.

Base salary: $285,200–$356,500 USD annually, plus potential equity and benefits.

Company

Scale AI develops reliable AI systems, high-quality data, and full-stack technologies for leading enterprises and government organizations.

What you will do

• Lead enterprise customer engagements across the Eastern United States as the senior technical and delivery executive for strategic accounts.
• Build and manage customer-specific teams of applied scientists and full-stack engineers.
• Own end-to-end delivery of reliable, production-grade agentic AI applications.
• Partner with Sales, Product, and Engineering on customer acquisition, expansion, and long-term success.
• Establish evals-first standards for performance, safety, and reliability in customer deployments.
• Hire, mentor, and develop forward-deployed leaders and individual contributors while shaping regional strategy.

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in software engineering, applied machine learning, or AI systems, with significant leadership responsibility.
• Experience leading customer-facing technical teams delivering complex systems for large enterprise customers.
• Executive presence with senior Fortune 500 stakeholders and experience handling high-stakes technical discussions.
• Strong foundation in applied machine learning or full-stack and distributed systems engineering, with fluency in the complementary area.
• Ability to translate ambiguous customer needs into technical solutions and delivery plans.
• Experience building and managing high-performing multidisciplinary teams and partnering with Sales and Product.

Nice to have

• Experience deploying generative AI or agentic systems in production enterprise environments.
• Background in consulting, forward-deployed engineering, or technical professional services.
• Experience building evaluation frameworks for ML or AI systems.
• Regional or multi-account technical leadership experience.

Culture & Benefits

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Retirement benefits, learning and development stipend, and generous paid time off.
• Potential equity compensation for eligible roles.
• Potential commuter stipend and reasonable workplace accommodations.
• Inclusive equal opportunity workplace committed to accessibility.

Hiring process

• Role level may range from Director to Senior Director based on experience, scope, and leadership impact.
• Compensation and equity eligibility are confirmed during the interview process.
• Candidates must wait 90 days before being reconsidered for the same role after an application.