Director, AI Engineering - Manufacturing (AI)

Location: Thailand - Pathumthani (Navanakorn); the role may be based in Bangkok, the UK, or Canada. Travel to manufacturing sites and partner locations is required for 30% or more of the time.

Company

hirify.global develops and manufactures photonic and optical technologies for advanced industrial applications.

What you will do

• Lead, grow, and develop a distributed team of AI/ML engineers supporting manufacturing sites.
• Set the technical vision, engineering standards, delivery practices, and multi-year roadmap for manufacturing AI.
• Identify and prioritize AI/ML opportunities across process optimization, yield improvement, visual inspection, defect classification, predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, and root-cause analysis.
• Guide the architecture, development, validation, deployment, and lifecycle management of production-grade AI/ML systems.
• Define reusable patterns for data pipelines, model management, APIs, user interfaces, monitoring, cybersecurity, reliability, and performance management.
• Partner with plant, engineering, quality, operations, IT, and data leaders to connect technical delivery with measurable manufacturing outcomes and user adoption.

Requirements

• 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, AI/ML engineering, data science, or a closely related technical discipline, including significant leadership experience.
• Bachelor's or master's degree in engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering, data science, or a related field.
• Hands-on understanding of software engineering, distributed systems, cloud or edge architectures, APIs, data platforms, testing, observability, security, and production operations.
• Practical knowledge of manufacturing processes, process variation, yield, quality systems, equipment data, inspection, traceability, root-cause analysis, and plant operations.
• Ability to work from Thailand, the UK, or Canada and travel to manufacturing sites and partner locations 30% or more.

Nice to have

• Experience in semiconductor, photonics, electronics, optical components, precision manufacturing, or other high-volume advanced manufacturing environments.
• Experience with MES, SPC, QMS, ERP, equipment automation, inspection platforms, historian systems, and yield management systems.
• Experience scaling AI/ML capabilities across multiple plants, regions, or business units.
• Experience applying generative AI, knowledge retrieval, agentic workflows, or LLM-enabled tools to manufacturing, engineering, quality, or operations use cases.

Culture & Benefits

• Equal opportunity workplace committed to diversity and inclusion.
• Reasonable accommodation is available for candidates with disabilities during hiring and employment.
• Regular travel provides direct collaboration with manufacturing sites and partner locations.