Blend360

Director, AI Engineering (Data Science)

Blend360 • $150K — $200K *
US-AnywhereRemote in Columbia, MD
Technical Services
8 - 10 years of experience
1 month ago
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related field; Ph.D. preferred.
  • 10+ years in data science and machine learning, with 3-5 years in leadership roles.
  • Experienced in leading high-performing AI/ML teams in client-facing environments.
  • Deep expertise in designing and training custom transformer architectures from scratch.
  • Strong foundation in applied data science: feature engineering, statistical modeling, and causal inference.
  • Proficient in Python and core ML/DL libraries including PyTorch and TensorFlow.
  • Direct experience with data in marketing/telecom sectors.

Responsibilities

  • Define technical investments aligned with business goals.
  • Mentor and manage AI/ML engineers and data scientists.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional leaders to prioritize and measure initiatives.
  • Establish engineering standards and governance frameworks for AI.
  • Lead design and development of custom transformer models.
  • Oversee end-to-end data science workflows from problem framing to deployment.
  • Engage with clients to translate business problems into AI initiatives.

Benefits

  • High-impact role with significant organizational influence.
  • Opportunity to set technical strategy and influence AI roadmap.
  • Work in a client-facing environment enhancing communication skills.
  • Mentorship opportunities for the next generation of engineers.
  • Chance to drive innovation in the field of AI and machine learning.
Full Job Description
Job Description

We are seeking a visionary and execution-oriented Director of AI Engineering to join our team. In this senior, client facing role, you will own the full lifecycle of AI model development, setting technical strategy and ensuring that cutting-edge machine learning solutions move from concept to production with business impact at their core.

With roots in data science and hands-on expertise in custom transformer architecture, you will bring both the credibility to lead technical teams. You will operate at the intersection of stakeholder management and deep technical execution and you should be equally comfortable presenting to a senior audience and reviewing model architecture with your team.

This is a high-impact, high-autonomyy role with significant organizational influence. You will define the AI roadmap, establish engineering best practices, and champion a culture of rigorous, reproducible, and responsible machine learning.

Strategic Leadership & Team Management
  • Define technical investments with business objectives
  • Mentor, and manage AI/ML engineers, senior data scientists, and MLOps engineers-setting performance expectations and a high-performance culture.
  • Partner with cross-functional leaders to prioritize initiatives, allocate resources, and measure organizational impact.
  • Establish engineering standards, code review practices, and model governance frameworks across the AI org.

Custom Transformer Architecture & Model Development
  • Serve as the technical authority on deep learning architecture-personally leading the design and development of custom transformer models for sequence modeling, customer propensity scoring, audience segmentation, and churn prediction.
  • Drive innovation in attention mechanisms, positional encodings, and tokenization strategies specifically suited to tabular, time-series, and event-stream data common in marketing and telecom.
  • Oversee adaptation and fine-tuning of foundation models (BERT, T5, TabTransformer, LLMs) for proprietary client datasets, ensuring domain-specific performance.
  • Champion reproducible experimentation and architectural decision documentation across the team.

Data Science & Applied Analytics
  • Oversee end-to-end data science workflows: problem framing, feature engineering, model development, validation, and production deployment.
  • Ensure statistical rigor in experimental design, causal inference, A/B testing, and offline/online evaluation frameworks.
  • Guide the team in building robust data pipelines for large-scale structured and unstructured datasets, including clickstream, CRM, ad telemetry, CDRs, and network KPIs.

Client & Executive Engagement
  • Lead technical discovery and solutioning with enterprise clients translating ambiguous business problems into well-scoped AI initiatives.
  • Present AI strategy, model results, and roadmap updates to C-suite and senior client stakeholders with clarity and executive presence.
  • Contribute to business development: support RFP responses, lead technical portions of client proposals, and help grow the AI engineering practice.

MLOps, Infrastructure & Governance
  • Establish production standards for model deployment, monitoring, drift detection, and automated retraining across cloud platforms (AWS SageMaker, GCP Vertex AI, Azure ML).
  • Drive adoption of MLOps best practices including CI/CD for ML, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and experiment tracking (MLflow, W&B, DVC).
  • Implement model governance, explainability, and responsible AI standards in compliance with client and regulatory requirements.


Qualifications
  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a closely related quantitative field; Ph.D. strongly preferred.
  • 10+ years of progressive experience in data science and machine learning, with at least 3-5 years in a people management or technical leadership role (Director, Sr. Manager, or Principal Engineer level).
  • Proven track record of leading high-performing AI/ML engineering teams in a fast-paced, client-facing or product environment.
  • Deep, hands-on expertise designing and training custom transformer architectures from scratch-not only fine-tuning pre-built checkpoints, but architecting novel attention mechanisms, embedding strategies, and model topologies.
  • Strong applied data science foundation: feature engineering, statistical modeling, causal inference, and experimental design across large-scale datasets.
  • Proficiency in Python and core ML/DL libraries: PyTorch (preferred), TensorFlow, HuggingFace Transformers, scikit-learn, XGBoost/LightGBM.
  • Direct experience with industry datasets in marketing & media (DSP/DMP logs, ad impression data, attribution pipelines, MMM) OR telecommunications (CDRs, network KPIs, subscriber behavior, churn datasets).
  • Command of SQL and large-scale data platforms: Spark, BigQuery, Snowflake, or Databricks.
  • Experience owning end-to-end MLOps: cloud deployment (SageMaker, Vertex AI, or Azure ML), monitoring, CI/CD for ML, and model governance.
  • Exceptional executive communication skills-able to translate complex model behavior into business language for C-suite and client audiences.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
  • Professional services experience across multiple client engagements or business units
  • Background in privacy-preserving ML: federated learning, differential privacy, or synthetic data generation-especially relevant in post-cookie marketing environments.
  • Knowledge of graph neural networks (GNNs) for social graph or network topology analysis in telecom contexts.
  • Published research or conference contributions (NeurIPS, ICML, KDD, RecSys, or industry equivalents) related to applied transformers, tabular deep learning, or domain-specific AI.
  • Experience with real-time inference and streaming ML pipelines (Kafka, Flink, or similar).
  • Demonstrated ability to build strategic partnerships with external clients, contributing to revenue growth or account expansion through technical leadership.
  • Deep experience with openai focused on embeddings
  • Experience building custom transformer models


Additional Information

About Blend360

Blend360 Vision is to build a company of world-class people that helps our clients optimize business performance through data, technology and analytics.

Blend360 Careers

There has never been a more opportune time to join the dynamic team at Blend360, a leader in data science and analytics solutions. As the demand for innovation and leadership in the data-driven decision-making sphere grows, Blend360 continues to expand its team of professionals.

Work You’ll Do

Join Blend360’s esteemed team to assist some of the most prominent companies in navigating their data-centric challenges and opportunities. At the forefront of technology and consulting, Blend360 stands out for its commitment to growth and excellence in the digital age. Lead in a unique role that intersects technology, industry expertise, and digital innovation. Engage with a diverse team of business and technology advisors helping clients advance their capabilities in data analytics and consumer insights. Collaborate with a group of over 300 dedicated professionals who specialize in creating measurable impact through robust data solutions.

Blend360 Employment Opportunities

The company is actively building a market-leading team to drive digital transformation and deliver targeted solutions across various industries. Blend360 offers a range of job opportunities, from full-time positions to internships, each designed to foster professional and personal growth.

Innovate and Grow

At Blend360, innovation isn’t just a buzzword—it's the cornerstone of the company’s operations. Employees are encouraged to bring fresh ideas to the table, leveraging their skills to enhance project outcomes and drive industry leadership.

Cultivate Your Career

Blend360 is committed to supporting its team’s career aspirations with extensive training, development programs, and diversity training. The company’s culture is built on the principles of open communication, mutual respect, and continuous learning.

Explore Job Opportunities and Benefits

Blend360 not only offers competitive benefits but also provides a platform for professionals to advance their careers through continuous learning and networking opportunities. Whether you’re seeking a leadership role or an entry-level position, Blend360 equips its team members with the tools needed for success.

The Blend360 Advantage

With a commitment to diversity and innovation, Blend360 creates an environment where all employees can thrive. The company’s leadership is dedicated to fostering a culture where creativity and strategic thinking are at the forefront of decision making.

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Search open positions that match your skills and interests. Blend360 looks for passionate, curious, creative, and solution-driven team players. Explore the various employment and internship opportunities to find where you can make a significant impact.

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Learn more about Blend360
Size
501 employees
Industry
Business Services
* Ladders Estimates

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