Sr. Director, Applied AI
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Job Location:
San Francisco, CA - USA
Monthly Salary:
€ 240 - 360
Posted on:
9 hours ago
Vacancies:
1 Vacancy
Job Summary
AI at Zapier
Check out our guidance on How to Collaborate with AI During Zapiers Hiring Process including how to use AI tools like ChatGPT Claude Gemini or others during our hiring process - and when not to.
Posted 12/4/2025
Hi there!
Zapier is on a mission to make automation accessible to everyone empowering people and businesses to be more efficient and productive. Were seeking a Sr. Director of Engineering to lead our AI Orchestration engineering this role youll manage multiple engineering squads to innovate and deliver AI solutions. You will lead AI engineering execution across the build organization.
This role will report to Zapiers CPTO (Chief Product and Technology Officer) and will partner with the Director of Product - AI.
We know applying for and taking on a new job at any company requires a leap of faith. We want you to feel comfortable and excited to apply at Zapier. To help share a bit more about life at Zapier here are a few resources in addition to the job description that can give you an inside look at what life is like at Zapier. Hopefully youll take the leap of faith and apply.
Zapier is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a diverse workforce.
About You
Youre a hands-on technical leader who thrives at the intersection of AI innovation and real-world product impact. You combine a deep understanding of AI and ML systems with the ability to apply them pragmatically to ship customer-facing products that solve meaningful problems.
Youre passionate about applied AI engineering. You stay at the forefront of AI development and experimentation and your peers look to you for insight vision and guidance on how to best leverage AI for customers and in day-to-day execution.
Youre driven to ship user-facing ML and LLM-powered products. Youve had hands-on experience building and shipping user-facing LLM features training and tuning models and integrating them into end-to-end products. Beyond AI youre a trusted technical architect who makes pragmatic tradeoffs to deliver quickly and with impact.
You think strategically and act pragmatically. You can see where AI is heading and use that vision to guide near-term architecture tradeoffs and execution. Youre comfortable with ambiguity and can chart a path forward even when the technology is evolving.
Youre customer-obsessed. You deeply understand customer needs and are passionate about delivering high-quality solutions to our customers. You have a passion for building products that delight both internal and external customers making their jobs easier and more productive. You thrive on working directly with customers and support and customer success teams towards the common outcome.
You can develop and sell a vision and strategy to your team and across the org. You have a good sense of vision and strategy and youre able to translate that strategy into successful execution through experimentation and continuous improvement. You partner closely with product management design marketing and the support organizations to drive and achieve business outcomes.
Youre motivated by shaping whats next. You want to define how millions of people experience automation in the AI era and help lead Zapiers next generation of customer-facing products.
You are a skilled mentor coach and engineering leader who holds a high bar for talent. You have a passion and a track record of mentoring engineers and leaders while also growing your own skills. Youve introduced and broadened engineering practices and enhanced engineering cultures. You hold a high bar for talent and increase talent density within your organization through effective hiring growing and upskilling your team and performance management.
Things Youll Do
Lead Zapiers AI Orchestration Zone in partnership with Product and Design. Co-own one of the companys most strategic initiatives unifying core AI capabilities driving technical direction and shaping how AI is applied across Zapiers products to create differentiated customer experiences.
Prototype and push the boundaries of applied AI. Experiment with new models tools and approaches to deliver impactful production-ready AI features that extend Zapiers automation capabilities.
Build and mentor a world-class engineering organization. Attract develop and retain exceptional talent while fostering a culture of technical excellence curiosity and velocity.
Drive a culture of innovation and technical rigor. Balance exploration with execution by turning emerging AI capabilities into scalable reliable features that create measurable customer impact.
Foster cross-functional alignment. Collaborate with Product Design and Go-to-Market partners to define the AI roadmap ensure execution against company strategy and translate bold ideas into tangible outcomes.
Champion engineering excellence. Guide architectural decisions evolve Zapiers AI infrastructure and uphold best practices in reliability scalability and agile development.
Shape Zapiers next chapter. Play a key role in defining what AI-powered automation looks like for millions of customers and how Zapier evolves into an intelligent orchestration platform.
Required Experience:
Exec
Key Skills
- Fundraising
- Management Experience
- Coaching
- Analysis Skills
- Strategic Planning
- Team Management
- Budgeting
- Leadership Experience
- Mentoring
- Public Speaking
- negotiation
- Supervising Experience
About Company
Zapier relies on dozens of systems that emit data about Zapier and our potential and current users and partners. This data is useful for us to make a better product, better decisions, and understand our weaknesses and opportunities. The data team at Zapier pulls this data from DBs, AP ... View more
