About the teamZillow Group is seeking a Director, Marketing AI & Automation to lead a new team within Marketing, Technology & Operations. This role will be accountable for delivering Marketing AI big bets, responsible for the roadmap, the platform, the governance, and the path that carries use cases into scaled production.
This role is responsible for shepherding AI big bets from strategy development to scaled implementation, including the platform and integration work they depend on, the measurement that proves impact, the change management that makes them stick, and the handoff to the teams who will run them day to day. The role also owns what comes next: sourcing and shaping the next generation of bets as the technology and the business shift, building the case for what to invest behind, and deciding what to retire.
This role will be responsible for building and leading a multidisciplinary team responsible for scaling AI use cases. The team is expected to have a mix of strategic, technical and operational skills.
About the role
Key Responsibilities
- Own the Marketing AI roadmap: Setting and defending the use-case portfolio, including what gets built, in what order, and for whom, prioritized against reclaimed capacity and business impact
- Run the path from idea to production: Building and operating the intake stage-gate from idea to pilot to production to owned, including the handoff model that transfers run-state to the team accountable for the outcome
- Stand up the agent and orchestration platform: Owning the shared layer, reusable components, and the data and vendor integration that AI use cases depend on, focused on integration and orchestration rather than model building
- Own AI governance for Marketing: Running agent audits, brand-risk scoring, and exclusion zones in partnership with Legal and Brand, aligned to Zillow's AI Principles and to external standards
- Drive adoption across the org: Running the adoption program and the network of embedded AI liaisons so that capability is embedded in day-to-day workflows rather than sitting unused
- Build and lead the team: Hiring into net-new technical and strategic roles, integrating talent redeployed from across Marketing, and setting the performance bar for a newly formed team
- Report value to leadership: Owning the measurement of capacity gained, speed to market, and business impact, including a clear account of what did not work
This role has been categorized as a Remote position. Remote employees do not have a permanent corporate office workplace and, instead, work from a physical location of their choice, which must be identified to the Company. U.S. employees may live in any of the 50 United States, with limited exceptions.
In California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Washington state, and Washington DC the standard base pay range for this role is $236,000.00 - $377,000.00 annually. This base pay range is specific to these locations and may not be applicable to other locations.
In Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia the standard base pay range for this role is $224,200.00 - $358,200.00 annually. The base pay range is specific to these locations and may not be applicable to other locations.
In addition to a competitive base salary this position is also eligible for equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance and location. Employees in this role will not be paid below the salary threshold for exempt employees in the state where they reside.
Who you are- 10+ years in marketing technology, growth engineering, applied AI, or technical product, including 4+ years leading teams.
- Production track record: Has moved AI use cases from proof of concept to scaled operation, and can speak specifically to what was built, what broke along the way, and what the measured impact was
- Marketing fluency: Strong understanding of how Marketing operate, with enough depth to hold a substantive conversation with a channel leader about where AI helps and where it does not
- Technically credible: Able to go deep with engineers on agent orchestration, data integration, and evaluation, and to distinguish a serious architecture from a demo, without needing to build models directly. Familiarity with a modern composable stack (CDP, reverse ETL, cloud data platform, enterprise LLM tooling) highly valued
- Enablement mindset: Track record running a center-led function that transferred capability outward as it matured, rather than accumulating ownership. Experience standing up a center of excellence or platform team from zero a plus
- Governance judgment: Experience managing brand, legal, and privacy risk in AI systems, and building the review mechanisms rather than resisting them
- Influence without authority: Able to drive outcomes that land inside other teams, on other roadmaps, without direct control
- Build-versus-buy judgment: Experience evaluating and managing AI and martech vendors, with a clear view of when a platform partner beats an internal build
- Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree in a technical or business field (MBA, Computer Science, Engineering, Analytics) a plus
