# Sprout Social — Director of Engineering, AI

- Generated: September 7, 2026 at 4:52:51 PM EDT
- Original/canonical posting: https://sproutsocial.com/careers/open-positions/8174730/?gh_jid=8174730
- Jobright source: https://jobright.ai/jobs/info/6a9b11a92cdc5958f53eab5e
- Posted: September 4, 2026 at 2:44:57 PM EDT
- Elapsed since posting at generation: 3 day(s), 2 hour(s)
- Valid through: October 4, 2026 at 2:44:57 PM EDT
- Applicants: Not disclosed
- Work model/location: Remote within the United States
- Employment type: FULL_TIME
- Compensation: $264,000–$319,000 annually
- Travel: Not disclosed
- Positioning track: Executive leader
- Fit outcome: FAIL — 74%

## Direct-match strengths

Platform-wide AI strategy, production LLM/RAG/agentic/evaluation systems, AI engineering leadership, manager-of-managers experience, distributed SaaS architecture, hiring, roadmaps, MLOps, reliability, security, and governance.

## Hard or material gaps

Hard posting-availability failure: the employer URL returns 404 and the Greenhouse API independently returns ‘Job not found.’ If reopened, the main material gaps would be limited recent leadership of a mixed applied-scientist/AI-engineer team and limited evidence of owning a completed company-wide SaaS AI pivot.

## Evidence map

1. Platform AI strategy — direct IDW, AWS, MassMutual, and product-platform evidence.
2. Production LLM, RAG, agents, and evaluation — direct AssistX evidence.
3. AI/ML engineering leadership — direct across IDW, SuccessKPI, NorthBay, and AWS.
4. Distributed SaaS architecture and operations — direct.
5. Hiring, coaching, roadmaps, and stakeholder alignment — direct.
6. MLOps, reliability, security, and governance — direct.
7. Mixed applied-scientist and AI-engineer leadership — material recent gap.
8. Completed company-wide SaaS AI pivot — adjacent rather than direct evidence.

## Full normalized job description

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Sprout Social is a social media management company that helps businesses use social media insights and workflows to drive growth and customer connections. The Director, Engineering - Artificial Intelligence will lead the platform-wide AI strategy, build high-performing AI/ML engineering and applied science teams, and guide architecture, product direction, execution, and talent development across the organization.
Responsibilities
As a Director, you will be a key member of the AI leadership team and be responsible for building high-functioning teams of applied AI/ML scientists and engineers and steering them to iteratively deliver quality results
You’ll lead the engineering team building foundational AI/ML products that will be used across our entire product suite and customer base
You will partner closely with the VP, Engineering and your leaders to chart the strategic growth of the current team, defining and building new teams and helping to steer architecture and product direction
Relying on your experience in building and maintaining highly scalable, reliable, distributed AI products and leading applied science teams, you'll lead teams to iteratively deliver quality software
You will guide the team through complicated product and technical roadmaps, and partner with product management and design to align on the strategy for your teams and support its execution
You’ll grow your team of engineers and applied scientists by example with effective feedback, coaching, and career development
Experiencing Sprout’s in-depth onboarding, covering everything from our company mission and values, hearing directly from executives and founders, to deep training on our products and the value that Sprout delivers to our customers
Learning the current state of AI and machine learning at Sprout and future product and technical roadmaps
Meeting your team in 1:1s to understand what’s working, what’s not, and gathering learnings to implement into your role
Establishing relationships with other engineering, product and design leaders and identify areas of opportunity
Participating in architectural discussions and decisions, bringing an informed industry perspective to ask the right questions and guide your team toward successful outcomes
Assuming management of the AI team's engineering leaders. Meeting with them regularly and providing them with direct, constructive feedback on their work, as well as formulating career growth plans
Participating in quarterly planning and roadmap processes and helping your team shape the technical roadmap for long-term success
Getting acclimated to the hiring process and partner with your leaders to establish a staffing plan and process for the teams
Helping your team and leaders improve processes and team rituals
Building relationships with our infrastructure, product, go to market, legal, and support teams and identify ways your teams can be more proactive and effective
Guiding and proactively evaluating your team’s execution on a major feature launch
Understanding the business goals and helping the team proactively focus on the right problems while balancing technical debt, bugs, and product features with measurable results
Leading the performance review and career band calibration process for your team and coach your leaders through performance conversations with their direct reports
Partnering with the VP, Engineering, product and design teams to evangelize our AI and ML technical and product vision with internal and external stakeholders
Becoming an expert in our approach to AI and to confidently speak to ever-changing trends, new product features and platform enhancements to internal and external stakeholders
Continue to develop your team, both personally and professionally, and having development plans in place for your team to hold them accountable
Serving as Sprout's bridge to the broader AI/ML industry by staying current on emerging trends and technologies and proactively bringing that outside perspective into the team's strategy and roadmap
Being recognized as a subject matter expert and leader in artificial intelligence and machine learning at Sprout
Surprise us! Use your unique ideas and abilities to change our AI capabilities in Sprout in beneficial ways that we haven’t even considered yet
Skills
7+ years of experience building and supporting products in a production environment
7+ years in software development, including several years leading teams and managing through leaders, with a track record of building sustainable, high-performing team structure
Experience leading engineering teams building AI/ML or agentic products, including partnering with or leading applied scientists and AI/ML engineers
Recent, direct experience (typically the last 2-3 years) leading or closely driving the development of modern AI products, agentic or LLM-based systems, evaluation and quality, built on foundation models. We care more about the depth and recency of your AI-product experience than the number of years
Direct experience leading a mixed team of applied scientists and AI/ML engineers, and an understanding of how to lead research-inflected work, evaluation, model judgment, and quality, alongside product engineering
Demonstrated experience developing and scaling high-performance teams through hiring and coaching of engineering leaders, applied scientists, and AI/ML engineers
Experience at a SaaS or product company that made a meaningful AI pivot or shift in product direction
Experience aligning a team's focus and vision towards the most impactful work across a complex product suite to meet the needs of a diverse, global customer base
Track record of influencing and aligning stakeholders across different points of view or functions, to drive successful outcomes
Experience developing enterprise-level distributed applications using Python, Java, distributed queuing systems, etc
Experience developing systems to deploy, manage, evaluate, and serve machine learning models and agentic products at scale
Experience with generative AI, including open source and third party solutions (e.g., OpenAI)
Benefits
Premium BCBSIL medical, dental (high/low plans), and vision (Eyemed) insurance for you and your eligible dependents.
Full, free access to Modern Health for you and your dependents, including coaching, therapy sessions, and digital wellness resources.
401(k) plan with a 50% company match on your first 6% of contributions (a 3% total match).
100% employer-paid Life and Disability insurance.
A flexible PTO policy, supplemented with additional company-wide Rest & Recharge days throughout the year.
Up to 16 weeks of paid leave for new parents.
A $1,000 USD annual Lifestyle Spending Account to spend on your physical, mental, and financial well-being.
A one-time $550 USD stipend to set up your home office, plus a monthly $50 USD stipend for internet.
16 hours of paid volunteer time annually, plus a $100 annual match for your charitable donations.
Access to pre-tax commuter benefits.
Subsidized child/eldercare (Care.com).
Discounted pet insurance (Figo).
No-cost personalized financial wellness support through Your Money Line.
Flexibility to work in the location that makes the most sense for them; Sprout maintains a remote workforce in many places in the United States.
Company Overview
Sprout Social is a global leader in social media management and analytics software. It was founded in 2010, and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, USA, with a workforce of 1001-5000 employees. Its website is http://sproutsocial.com.
Company H1B Sponsorship
Sprout Social, Inc. has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 3 in 2025, 1 in 2023, 1 in 2022, 2 in 2020. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.

## Artifact metadata

- Resume and cover letter: Not generated under the fit gate.
- Google Drive used: No