[15h Left] Director of Artificial Intelligence

Job Description Position - Director of Artificial Intelligence (AI Technical Fellow) Location - Hyderabad/Chennai Work Mode - Hybrid Shift Time - 4 PM to 12 AM (IST) Position Overview We are seeking an AI Technical Fellow to join our organization in India. This senior role combines deep technical expertise in artificial intelligence especially generative AI and video-language (multimodal) models with proven experience in leading global teams to build AI products and platforms. The AI Technical Fellow will focus on product development and platform architecture, driving the long-term AI strategy and ensuring the integration of cutting-edge generative AI capabilities into our solutions. The position involves leading existing engineering teams and recruiting new talent to build a world-class AI group, while primarily based in India (with minimal travel requirements). This role requires deep research expertise, proven industry experience leading global engineering and research teams, and the ability to translate advanced AI concepts into scalable, high-impact products and platforms. Overview The AI Technical Fellow will serve as a senior technical leader responsible for driving innovation and advancing the company's AI capabilities across generative models, video-language understanding, and next-generation multimodal systems. This role requires deep research expertise, proven industry experience leading global engineering and research teams, and the ability to translate advanced AI concepts into scalable, high-impact products and platforms. Key Responsibilities - Lead strategic development in advanced AI areas, including generative modeling, video-language models, and large-scale multimodal systems. - Architect and guide the design of AI platforms that power end-to-end product ecosystems, integrating video, text, and audio understanding. - Mentor and provide technical oversight to global AI teams, ensuring alignment of research innovation with business objectives. - Collaborate with product, engineering, and data science leadership to operationalize cutting-edge research into production-grade AI products. - Drive partnerships with academic and industry institutions, shaping the organization's thought leadership in AI and emerging technologies. - Define long-term AI technical vision and roadmap, influencing company-wide engineering decisions and strategic investments in AI infrastructure. Required Qualifications - Ph.D. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related technical field. - 12+ years of experience in AI engineering, and product development, including leadership experience in globally distributed teams. - Proven record of building and scaling AI-powered platforms and products using generative AI and multimodal (video-language) models. - AI/ML Expertise: Deep expertise in machine learning and AI algorithms, particularly generative AI (such as large language models, GANs, diffusion models) and multimodal systems that combine vision and language. The candidate should be adept at developing and applying advanced AI models to real-world applications. - Strong expertise in deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX, with experience deploying LLMs and diffusion-based models. - Demonstrated ability to bridge research and production, with hands-on experience in training, evaluating, and productionizing large AI systems. - Exceptional communication and leadership skills, with the ability to influence cross-functional and senior stakeholders. Architecture & Technical Strategy:Define and drive the AI architecture strategy, ensuring solutions align with business objectives and that the organization remains at the leading edge of AI innovation. Develop a cohesive technical vision for AI platforms and communicate it across stakeholders. AI Product Development: Lead end-to-end development of AI-driven products and features especially those leveraging generative AI and video-language models from concept and prototyping to production deployment. Deliver cutting-edge solutions with high performance and scalability, working closely with engineering teams on implementation. Platform Engineering: Oversee the design and enhancement of the core AI platform and infrastructure. Ensure the platform supports large-scale model training and inference, optimizing model performance and efficiency in cloud production environments. Champion best practices in system design, data pipeline architecture, and deployment for robust AI services. Team Leadership & Mentorship: Provide technical leadership and mentorship to a high-performing global team of AI engineers. Guide team members, set performance standards, and foster a culture of innovation and excellence. Manage and grow the team by hiring and developing top AI talent, building the group's capabilities in line with strategic needs. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams including product management, data science, and other engineering groups to integrate AI capabilities across the product portfolio. Ensure alignment of AI initiatives with product requirements and business objectives, and communicate progress to executive leadership and stakeholders. Innovation: Stay abreast of the latest research and advancements in AI, particularly in generative models and multimodal (video-language) AI. Spearhead the exploration and prototyping of new techniques (e.g. transformer model improvements, diffusion models, vision-language integration) and incorporate emerging technologies into the AI platform. Encourage a mindset of continuous innovation in the team, keeping the company's AI technology on the cutting edge. - Governance & Best Practices: Establish and enforce best practices for AI development and deployment, including model governance, scalability, security, and MLOps standards. Oversee the responsible AI aspects of the platform ensuring compliance with ethical AI guidelines and data privacy requirements and maintain documentation and processes for high-quality, reliable AI deployments. - Publications or patents in leading AI conferences or journals are highly desirable. Preferred Attributes - Experience working with foundation models (e.g., LLMs, VLMs) and optimizing them for enterprise-scale applications. - Multimodal AI Systems: Experience working with vision-language or video-language models and integrating visual data (images/videos) with NLP or other data modalities. For example, prior work on video understanding, image captioning, or similar multimodal AI applications will be a plus. - Scalable Systems & MLOps: Hands-on experience in deploying AI solutions on cloud infrastructure with modern DevOps/MLOps practices. Familiarity with containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code for managing AI model deployment at scale is preferred. Experience optimizing models for efficiency (through techniques like model compression, distillation, etc.) in production environments is a plus. - Track record of fostering innovation cultures within global AI research or engineering organizations. - Responsible AI & Governance: Knowledge of responsible AI principles and experience implementing AI governance frameworks (bias mitigation, fairness, transparency, data privacy) in projects. Understanding of regulatory considerations for AI and experience embedding ethical best practices into AI development will be advantageous. - Passion for transforming complex AI research into accessible, impactful technologies that redefine user experiences. Strategic Impact of the Role In this Technical Fellow position, the individual will play a pivotal role in shaping the company's AI trajectory. By driving the high-level architecture and long-term strategy for AI, they ensure that the organization stays ahead of industry trends and maintains a competitive edge through innovation. The Fellow's guidance will align AI initiatives with business goals, enabling the seamless integration of AI capabilities across products and services to unlock new opportunities and enhance existing offerings. As a senior technical leader and visionary, this person will influence company-wide AI practices from steering important research & development decisions to cultivating an AI-driven culture thereby empowering the organization to harness generative AI and multimodal technologies in transformative ways. The strategic impact of this role will be seen in the creation of a robust AI platform that underpins current and future products, the elevation of technical standards and innovation within the team, and the company's reputation as a leader in applying AI to achieve business value.