Vice President of Artificial Intelligence

About the job

Employ is transforming how hiring gets done. With our three ATS solutions - Jobvite, Lever, and JazzHR - plus cutting-edge AI Companions, we free recruiters from admin work and give them more time for what matters: connecting with people. More than 23,000 global customers rely on Employ to make millions of candidate connections each year, helping them hire smarter, faster, and at scale. From growing startups to the world’s most recognized brands, we’re redefining what’s possible in talent acquisition.

We’re a fast-moving, remote-first team of builders and innovators who live our people-first philosophy every day. We back it up with flexible work scheduling and paid time off, comprehensive benefits, and career development opportunities that help you thrive. At Employ, you won’t just grow your career - you’ll help millions of others grow theirs.

Come join our team where we have each other’s backs, champion our customers, hold ourselves accountable, and shape what’s next in talent acquisition.

About the Opportunity

The VP of AI will lead the vision, strategy, and execution of AI within the Engineering function, defining the future of how we build and what we deliver.

This role is responsible for establishing our AI engineering paradigm. You will define exactly how we build with AI by pioneering a "Dark Factory SDLC"—a highly mature, agentic engineering environment that radically automates and scales how software is built. Simultaneously, you will drive SOTA hire tech AI product design, ensuring our product architecture and engineering practices remain industry-leading.

This is a deeply technical, product-focused, and customer-facing leadership role. You will lead the overarching AI strategy and roadmap for model selection, technologies, AI architecture, and engineering approaches to keep our engineering and product organizations at the bleeding edge.

Beyond building the product, you will work directly with our customers to assist them in implementing our AI suite. To execute this, you will lead a team of Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) who ensure successful customer deployments while providing a direct, rigorous feedback loop into engineering for continuous product improvement. Finally, you will take ultimate ownership of AI compliance across engineering, product operations, and the products themselves, ensuring strict alignment with the EU AI Act, various US AI acts, and rapidly evolving global standards.

About the Team

You will report to the CTO and serve as the foremost AI leader within the Engineering and Product organizations. You will lead AI architecture, forward deployed engineers, and partner closely with Product, Security, and Go-to-Market teams. Success means our engineering function operates with SOTA agentic efficiency, our AI products lead the market, and our customers see massive value through seamless technical implementation.

What You’ll Do

AI Strategy, Architecture & Roadmap

• Lead the strategy and AI technology roadmap for model selection, core technologies, AI architecture, and engineering approaches.
• Ensure our AI roadmap remains strictly SOTA for both the engineering function and the final product.
• Drive SOTA hire tech AI product design, ensuring our offerings deliver unparalleled technical advantages to the market.
• Make high-level architectural decisions that balance bleeding-edge innovation with scalability and reliability.

Dark Factory SDLC & Agentic Engineering

• Define exactly how the Engineering team builds software with AI.
• Pioneer and implement a "Dark Factory SDLC" operating model, utilizing highly mature agentic engineering workflows to heavily automate the software development lifecycle, radically accelerate velocity, and improve code quality.
• Turn AI-assisted development from fragmented experimentation into a rigorous, repeatable, high-leverage operating model.

Customer Implementation & Forward Deployed Engineering

• Work directly with customers as a high-level technical partner to assist them in successfully implementing and deploying our AI products.
• Lead our Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) focused on embedding our AI capabilities directly within complex customer environments.
• Design and enforce a flawless feedback loop: ensure FDEs operating on the front lines provide direct, continuous feedback into core engineering to drive rapid product improvements and feature prioritization.

AI Compliance & Governance

• Serve as the definitive owner for AI compliance globally within Engineering, product operations, and the core products themselves.
• Ensure all models, agents, and AI systems inherently comply with the EU AI Act, various US AI acts, and emerging global data/privacy frameworks.
• Create practical governance that embeds compliance and security directly into our architecture without slowing down engineering momentum or innovation.

What You Bring

• Deep technical expertise in modern AI/ML capabilities, SOTA model selection, AI architecture, and enterprise AI product design.
• Experience pioneering highly automated, AI-assisted engineering workflows (e.g., highly mature agentic engineering, "Dark Factory" SDLC).
• Strong customer-facing experience; ability to translate deeply technical AI concepts to enterprise customers and guide them through complex implementations.
• Proven track record of leading customer-facing engineering teams (like FDEs) and structuring tight product-feedback loops to drive core engineering.
• Strong understanding of the global AI regulatory landscape (EU AI Act, US state and federal AI regulations) and how to design natively compliant technical architectures.
• Hands-on, architectural mindset; you can navigate deep technical model-selection discussions while also driving customer implementation and compliance strategy.
• We care much more about learning velocity, range, grit, and builder energy than about checking a years-of-experience box.

What We’re Looking For

• Builder and architect, not an AI tourist.
• Pragmatic executor who balances SOTA innovation with compliance and reliability.
• Customer-obsessed, with a strict bias toward using frontline implementation feedback to drive product roadmaps.
• Understands AI deeply enough to architect systems, select the right models, and separate signal from hype.
• Navigates regulatory complexity (EU AI Act, etc.) as a feature of rigorous engineering, not a blocker.
• Moves fast, creates visible wins in product, and wants to fundamentally rewire how software is built and how products learn from real-world deployment.