Associate Director - AI/ML Engineering

When you join Verizon You want more out of a career. A place to share your ideas freely — even if they’re daring or different. Where the true you can learn, grow, and thrive. At Verizon, we power and empower how people live, work and play by connecting them to what brings them joy. We do what we love — driving innovation, creativity, and impact in the world. Our V Team is a community of people who anticipate, lead, and believe that listening is where learning begins. In crisis and in celebration, we come together — lifting our communities and building trust in how we show up, everywhere & always. Want in? Join the #VTeamLife. What you’ll be doing... This is a leadership role that will require deep technical expertise in AI Engineering and will focus on establishing a strong AI Engineering, AI Platforms that enables Generative and Agentic AI solutions at scale. Delivering AI Platforms at Scale Leading the AI engineering team and overseeing the end-to-end development, deployment, and maintenance of scalable AI platforms and frameworks, including delivering core services across the Generative and Agentic AI landscape. Owning non-functional KPIs across production deployments of AI applications and agents on the Enterprise AI platform, covering key components such as the AI SDK, Agent Registry, and Agent Builder. Managing and tracking strategic KPIs to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency, and business impact of enterprise AI solutions. Driving innovation by researching, evaluating, and adopting emerging AI technologies, tools, and methodologies to expand organizational AI/ML capabilities. Ensuring best-in-class engineering standards in AI development—including rigorous model validation, automated testing, and reliable deployment—while adhering to ethical and regulatory frameworks. Directing project delivery timelines, budgets, and engineering resources to ensure the execution of high-impact AI initiatives. Building and Managing the Team Championing a transparent global operating model to establish strong operational foundations across regions. Building and scaling a high-performing engineering team that operates with autonomy, high accountability, and urgency toward delivering business outcomes. Fostering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Attracting and retaining top-tier AI engineering talent with deep technical expertise. Enabling team member growth through continuous training pathways, structured on-the-job coaching, and dedicated mentorship. Fostering an open research culture that empowers practitioners to conduct pioneering work and contribute externally via open-source initiatives and technical publications. Providing Technical Thought Leadership Operating as an internal and external subject matter authority on next-generation AI platforms. Serving as a trusted technical advisor to cross-functional enterprise stakeholders. Mentoring and developing high-potential technical talent across the organization. Elevating the AI Practice Partnering with academic institutions and startup ecosystems to source cutting-edge AI approaches that create organizational value. Tracking industry advancements in Generative and Agentic AI, translating emerging trends into custom enterprise solutions. Inspiring engineering teams to design bias-aware systems that champion responsible, ethical AI both internally and across external partner networks. Establishing governance routines, model lifecycle management policies, peer-review standards, and compliance frameworks for privacy, ethics, and fairness. Where you'll be working In this hybrid role, you'll have a defined work location that includes work from home and assigned office days set by your manager. What we’re looking for... This leader and the team will own, drive and partner the platform KPIs for use cases driven by BUs. At Verizon, we are at a pivotal point to industrialize our AI capabilities platforms to next-gen standards. You are a seasoned AI leader with hands on analytical and coding skills, eager to work in a collaborative environment with global teams to drive AI/ML application in business problems, develop end to end AI driven Cognitive solutions and communicate insights and findings to leadership. You thrive in a dynamic environment and are able to interact with various stakeholders and global cross functional teams to implement AI driven business solutions. You are excited about driving high value outcomes through AI and enjoy mentoring and leading data scientists to deliver large scale AI solutions. You’ll need to have: Bachelor's degree or four or more years of work experience. Six or more years of relevant work experience. Three or more years of direct experience with leading AI Engineering teams, two or more years in a manager capacity managing AI Engineering talent. Experience in scaling Real Time Gen AI apps and establishing a high available architecture. Expert level understanding in tools in the model lifecycle. Experience in Talent development for AI engineering talent across all the roles. Experience with supporting a global CoE model managing stakeholders across technology and business teams of the enterprise Even better if you have one or more of the following: Strong experience in managing AI product teams. Strong experience in managing AI scaling. Knowledge on GPU/CPU architecture and distributed computing and general infra needs to scale Predictive & Generative AI models. Excellent communication skills. Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills. Outstanding analytical and problem-solving skills. If Verizon and this role sound like a fit for you, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every “even better” qualification listed above. Where you’ll be working In this hybrid role, you'll have a defined work location that includes work from home and assigned office days set by your manager. Scheduled Weekly Hours 0 Equal Employment Opportunity Verizon is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, gender, disability or any other legally protected characteristics.