About the RoleAs the Tech Director of AI Products, you will be the founding technical leader of our team - a hands-on, full-stack player-coach who sets the architecture and ships production code. You will lead the engineering work on our first product bets, shape the patterns R/GA will inherit as it ships AI to the market, and partner directly with our Head of AI Products and the R/GA Global CTO.
You will work within a small, senior team - alongside an AI Engineer and a Senior PM - with an explicit mandate to ship reusable products rather than bespoke client work.
This is an engineer-first role requiring the judgment of an architect and the instincts of a founder. You will write production code daily across the stack, directing agents fluently and writing by hand where it matters most. We hire for one specific shape: technically minded, T-shaped individuals with a track record of building long-term AI products that have shipped, sold, and lasted - not just demos.
Key Responsibilities- Hands-on Full-Stack Engineering: Ship production code across the stack - frontend, backend, AI/ML, and infrastructure. As a player-coach, you will contribute daily, not just review code.
- Agent-Driven Development: Lead how AIP builds with agents. Set the standards, patterns, and tooling that ensure agent-generated code is production-quality.
- Architecture & Platform: Define the reference architecture, runtime, and tooling underlying AIP's products, ensuring each is genuinely reusable across clients.
- Engineering Leadership: Lead the technical build of our first product bets. Set patterns, mentor the team, and raise the bar.
- Productization Discipline: Ensure every product ships as a working demo, a marketing deck, and a reusable codebase. Hold the line against one-off custom work.
- Cross-Network Partnership: Coordinate with R/GA's CTO and engineering teams to harvest patterns and ensure architectural coherence.
- Talent: Hire, develop, and retain a high-bar engineering team.
- Pitch Support: Act as the authoritative technical voice in the room during high-stakes pitches.
- Roadmap & Bet Selection: Partner with Paul and Nick to evaluate productization opportunities and decide what scales versus what retires.
Qualifications- 10+ years of software engineering experience, with 3+ years leading AI-powered products in production.
- Full-stack engineering capability: strong in at least three of the following - modern frontend (React/TypeScript), backend (Python/Node/Go), AI/ML systems and pipelines, or infrastructure. You are comfortable picking up tickets across the stack.
- Expertise in agent-driven development. You know when to drive an agent and when to write code yourself, as well as how to review and harden agent output before it ships.
- Deep fluency in generative AI: LLMs, agent frameworks, retrieval architectures, evaluation methods, and deployment patterns.
- A proven track record of shipping reusable software products (not just custom client builds).
- Founding-team or early-engineering-leader experience at a startup, studio, or product organization.
- Comfortable presenting to the C-suite and senior client technologists while keeping technical credibility intact.
- A strong bias for shipping. A tight v0 in two weeks beats a perfect roadmap in two months.
Bonus Points for- Prior experience at an agency, studio, or consulting firm - you understand pitch-driven rhythms.
- Open-source contributions or published technical writing on AI systems, agent design, or generative interfaces.
- A background in design tooling, brand systems, content infrastructure, or generative interfaces.
- Experience designing platform/SDK abstractions that other engineers happily adopt.
Why Join AIP?- Build the technical foundation for AI productization at R/GA - one of the world's most respected creative innovation networks.
- Enjoy an independent mandate to invest in AI with direct executive sponsorship from the CEO and CTO.
- Have a direct line to the Head of AI Products and the Global CTO. Your work will show up in pitches, press, and awards.
- Work within a senior, intentionally small team. No politics, no process tax, no committees.
The hiring range for this position is $200,000 to $240,000. Where an employee or prospective employee is paid within this range will depend on, among other factors, actual ranges for current/former employees in the subject position; budgetary considerations; tenure and standing with the company (applicable to current employees); as well as the employee's/applicant's applicable skills, pertinent experience, and qualifications.
