Associate Director - AI Delivery
Summary
Senior client-facing delivery leader who architects and ships AI & cloud solutions for enterprise clients at Firstsource — owning P&L, leading 10–20 engineers, and embedding Generative AI (LLMs, RAG, agents) using Python, hyperscaler clouds, and agentic tooling like Copilot, Claude Code, and LangChain.
Job Summary :
We are seeking a commercially astute and technically exceptional Associate Director to bridge client relationships and world-class AI & Cloud engineering delivery.
You will be the primary interface between strategic clients and our engineering teams - winning new mandates, co-designing solutions, and owning end-to-end delivery from ideation to production. With 15+ years of experience, you bring deep Python and Generative AI expertise, proven cloud architecture skills, and the gravitas to influence at the C-suite level while staying hands-on with modern agentic development tooling.
Key Responsibilities :
1. Solution Architecture & Solutioning :
- Translate ambiguous client needs into structured, costed, and deliverable technical roadmaps.
- Architect end-to-end solutions : from ideation and PoC through to scalable production systems.
- Drive cloud-native design on Azure, AWS, GCP or hybrid platforms.
- Define reference architectures embedding Generative AI, LLMs, and agentic workflows.
2. Engineering Leadership & Delivery :
- Lead multi-disciplinary teams of 10 - 20 engineers, leads, and architects across geographies.
- Establish and enforce delivery governance : agile rituals, quality gates, and risk management.
- Champion CI/CD, DevSecOps, and MLOps practices across all client programmes.
- Own program P&L, resource planning, and executive-level status reporting.
- Drive adoption of AI coding agents (GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Amazon Q) to accelerate delivery.
3. Generative AI & Intelligent Automation :
- Embed Generative AI capabilities (LLMs, RAG pipelines, multi-agent systems) into enterprise products.
- Design and deploy AI agent workflows using tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and similar platforms.
- Evaluate and adopt emerging agentic frameworks (LangChain, Agent Core, CrewAI, etc.) to accelerate delivery.
- Champion responsible AI practices including governance, safety, and model observability.
4. People & Stakeholder Management :
- Build, mentor, and grow a high-performance team of engineers and technical managers.
- Manage a complex stakeholder matrix : internal leadership, client sponsors, and delivery partners.
- Influence without authority across business units and geographies.
- Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous learning.
Qualifications & Experience :
- 15+ years in software / AI engineering; 6+ years at senior leadership or Associate Director level.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
- Demonstrated track record of building and shipping end-to-end applications across the full SDLC.
- Full lifecycle ownership : ideation - architecture - engineering - production - optimisation.
- Proven cloud architecture and deployment across at least one hyperscaler.
- Demonstrable track record of winning and delivering large-scale client engagements.
- Strong commercial acumen : P&L ownership, proposal writing, SOW and contract management.