Sr. Manager, Engineering – AI & Innovation

Job Description:

Job Title: Senior Manager Engineering AI & Innovation

Location:Remote USA Canada
Reports to: VP Architecture (Engineering Enterprise Architecture and AI & Innovation)

Employment Type: Full-time

This is new vacancy Internal External posting

About the Role:

You own AI & Innovation. You take direct day-to-day leadership of the Innovation Crew and Launch Lab pods. Where the AI & Innovation Manager owns process and delivery mechanics and the Principal AI Engineer owns technical architecture you own the people the roadmap and the outcomes. You are the true people leader in this function the Manager and every engineer on the team look to you for direction growth and the final call on priority when demand exceeds your first 30 days you will have met with every team member reviewed the active intake pipeline and PoC backlog and confirmed the operating cadence. By day 60 you will have delivered your first quarterly roadmap review to the VP and identified the teams next hiring priority. By day 90 you will own the full reporting line for both pods and be the teams primary voice in cross-engineering leadership forums.

This role is what lets AI & Innovation operate as a durable standalone function rather than one leaders personal project. Hiring decisions roadmap trade-offs and escalations that once required a single point of judgment now have a dedicated owner giving the team a stable center of gravity as it scales. The PoC velocity Power Agents adoption rate engineering hours saved and AI Standards compliance the team is measured by are outcomes you own and report on directly to the VP and in turn to Engineering leadership. You translate enterprise AI strategy into a roadmap your engineers can execute against and you translate what your engineers learn in production back into direction the rest of JD Powers engineering organization can trust.

In this role you will:

Hire manage coach and grow the AI & Innovation function; own performance management career development and org design decisions as the team scales.

Own the team roadmap: partner with the VP of Architecture to translate enterprise AI strategy into a quarterly roadmap for Innovation Crew (PoC delivery Power Agents AI Standards Emerging Tech Radar) and Launch Lab (application delivery hand-offs to maintaining teams); make the trade-off calls when demand exceeds capacity.

Own the operating cadence end to end: serve as final approver on the three-gate intake process the escalation point when compliance or handoff issues stall a pilot and the person who ensures the AI & Innovation process protects rather than slows engineering time.

Own the DevOps & AppSec and Cloud Engineering partnerships: establish and maintain the working relationship with DevOps & AppSec and Cloud Engineering so CI/CD infrastructure and application security needs for Innovation Crew and Launch Lab outputs are met without creating a bottleneck.

Own metrics and executive reporting: report PoC velocity Power Agents adoption rate engineering hours saved and AI Standards compliance to the VP of Architecture and Engineering leadership; represent AI & Innovation results at Engineering Town Halls and quarterly business reviews.

Own the AI agent workforce lifecycle: set the standard for onboarding new agents into production tracking their performance and adoption against Power Agents metrics maturing agent capabilities as use cases evolve and offboarding or retiring agents that no longer meet AI Standards or business need.

Own cross-org relationships: serve as the teams primary point of contact for the eight peer engineering clusters Product and business unit leaders; maintain the design-partner and consumer engagement model so demand is prioritized rather than triaged ad hoc; ensure OEM Solutions and Geography-based scope boundaries are respected.

Own delivery of major initiatives that intersect with AI & Innovation: AI Everywhere rollout Agentic AI framework maturity Snowflake AI/ML integration coordination with Internal Platforms and the Engineering Metrics (DORA) program as it applies to the team.

Partner with Legal InfoSec and Data Governance on Enterprise AI Standards; ensure every initiative the team ships reflects current governance requirements before it reaches a business stakeholder.

Required Qualifications:

8 years of software engineering experience with a demonstrated track record of directly managing engineers.

Experience standing up scaling or leading an AI/ML platform or innovation-focused engineering function ideally one operating with agentic AI LLM-based systems or rapid prototype-to-production delivery.

A track record of partnering with VP or executive-level leaders to translate strategy into an executable resourced roadmap and of making the prioritization calls when team capacity and stakeholder demand conflict.

Experience owning delivery metrics and KPIs and reporting them credibly to senior leadership on a recurring cadence.

Preferred Qualifications:

Direct hands-on experience with agent frameworks internal agent libraries (Power Agents or equivalent) or MCP/A2A-style integration patterns enough to have a credible technical conversation with a Principal AI Engineer.

Familiarity with enterprise data platforms (Snowflake) and cloud infrastructure (AWS) and with the DevOps/AppSec disciplines the team now partners with in place of a dedicated platform hire.

Existing JD Power relationships across Engineering Leaders Product Legal InfoSec or business unit leads institutional knowledge compresses the path to full effectiveness in this role.

Experience leading teams that operate across both 0-to-1 prototyping and applied production-facing delivery models simultaneously.

Compensation and Benefits

This position has a starting salary range of $130000 - $160000 CAD / $140000 - $170000 USD per year. The range represents what we reasonably and in good faith expect to pay for the role at the time of posting. An employees pay within the range is determined by a number of factors including relevant skills education qualifications experience performance business or organizational needs and geographic location.

Eligible employees may participate in medical dental vision disability life insurance retirement savings programs paid time off wellness programs and other company-sponsored benefits. Benefits vary by country and employment status.

Why Join JD Power

JD Power powers auto-related decisions through proprietary data advanced analytics deep industry expertise and workflows that connect insight to action. Operating across North America Europe and Australia we help customers make better decisions and achieve better outcomes.

As a virtual-first company we offer flexible work arrangements opportunities for learning and development and a culture centered on the Values that guide how we work every day.

We power our customers success. Everything we do is focused on helping customers make better decisions and achieve better outcomes.

We are innovative collaborative and grounded in data. We combine advanced analytics with human expertise to deliver insight that holds up in the real world.

We make things easy. We turn complexity into clarity so teams can act faster and with confidence.

We get it done. We focus on execution accountability and results.

We start with trust and prove it every day. Independence integrity and credibility are the foundation of our work.

Equal Opportunity & Accommodations

JD Power is committed to employing a diverse workforce. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race color religion sex national origin age sexual orientation gender identity gender expression veteran status or disability.

JD Power is committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process for individuals with disabilities or other protected needs under applicable local laws. Please contact for accommodation request.

Data Privacy

JD Power does not disclose your personal data to unauthorized third parties. However as a global corporation consisting of multiple affiliated companiesin various countries JD Power has international sites and JD Power uses resources located throughout the world. JD Power may from time to time also use third parties to act on JD Powers behalf. You agree to the fact that to the extent necessary yourpersonal data may be transferred and/or disclosed to any company within JD Power group of companies as well as to third parties acting on JD Powers behalf including also transfers to servers and databases outside the country where you provided JD Powerwith your personal data. Such transfers may include for example transfers and/or disclosures outside the European Economic Area and in the United States of America. If you are a California or United Kingdom resident additional disclosures about the information we collect and how we use that information can be found by clickinghere.

Applications

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the country where employment is offered. JD Power does not provide employment sponsorship for this position.

This position is posted exclusively on and select trusted job boards such as LinkedIn or Indeed. All official communication comes from email addresses ending in @ or @. We will never ask for payment equipment purchases or upfront may take additional steps to verify candidate information to protect the integrity of our recruitment process.

To all recruitment agencies: JD Power does not accept unsolicited agency resumes and we are not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.