Learneo

Senior Director of AI, R&D – Agentic Systems

Learneo

full-time

Posted on:

Location Type: Remote

Location: California • Colorado • United States

Visit company website

Explore more

✨ AI Apply
Apply

Salary

💰 $249,000 - $421,000 per year

Job Level

Senior

About the role

  • Ship and iterate on production agentic workflows connecting QuillBot's core tools and surfaces, proving the orchestration architecture under real user load
  • Make high-conviction technical bets on the model stack, compute strategy, and agent execution model, with written rationale that the org can build against
  • Own the technical point of view on which ICP verticals and workflows justify agentic investment, and drive that conviction into AI, product, and engineering planning
  • Inherit and reshape the AI org to match the velocity and scope of what we're building, including hiring where gaps exist
  • Design and lead systems for intent recognition, task decomposition, and multi-step execution across QuillBot’s product surfaces
  • Define how agentic systems plan, coordinate, and execute workflows across a multi-surface application suite
  • Establish standards for agent-native infrastructure, enabling product surfaces to be machine-readable and executable
  • Lead research and development across text and multimodal domains, with an initial focus on text and image capabilities
  • Build on QuillBot’s existing strengths in NLP while extending into new modalities to create differentiated product experiences
  • Drive the shipping cadence for model updates, MLOps, and data pipelines across high-scale production
  • Own system reliability and performance of the AI stack serving tens of millions of users worldwide
  • Balance system performance, latency, and cost through informed decisions on compute economics and architecture
  • Build and lead an integrated AI organization spanning R&D and Applied AI teams
  • Partner with the VP of AI and senior leadership to define technical direction, evaluate trade-offs, and guide platform-level decisions
  • Drive alignment across Engineering, Product, and Design to ensure adoption of agent-native standards
  • Raise the quality bar across the organization, acting as a force multiplier for team performance and execution
  • Architect the team's operating model around AI-native workflows, using automated pipelines, code generation, and internal tooling to achieve output disproportionate to headcount.

Requirements

  • Experience building and shipping agentic systems or orchestration platforms in production at meaningful scale, not prototypes or research demos
  • Distributed Agency: deep expertise coordinating diverse agent populations (plan-based, scripted, and hybrid) within stateful environments, including task decomposition, intent routing, and multi-step execution
  • State & Persistence: proven ability to design and operate systems that maintain sustained, context-aware agency across multi-session and multi-domain workflows
  • Compute Economics: ability to optimize sophisticated planning logic against the constraints of latency, unit economics, and reliability at consumer scale
  • Background in NLP and/or multimodal AI (text and image preferred), with the ability to guide applied research, evaluate model architectures, and make binding technical decisions on model strategy across proprietary and third-party ecosystems
  • Proven leadership of both AI R&D and Applied AI/MLOps teams within consumer product environments serving millions of users
  • Track record of scaling AI systems and infrastructure from early-stage builds (0→1) into high-scale production (1→10), not just inheriting mature platforms
  • Forms strong technical opinions quickly, updates them based on evidence rather than consensus, and translates AI capabilities into product direction and business impact
  • Has built or reshaped AI organizations to match the demands of a rapidly evolving technical mandate, including hiring, restructuring, and raising the performance bar
  • Drives alignment across Engineering, Product, and executive stakeholders through technical credibility and strategic clarity, not positional authority
  • Operates effectively across global distributed teams and time zones.
Benefits
  • Competitive salary and annual bonus
  • Medical coverage, including full dental and vision
  • Retirement savings plans
  • Life and disability benefits
  • Vacation & leaves of absence
  • Annual family planning stipend
  • Social responsibility program (volunteer time off and donation matching)
  • Developmental opportunities through education & developmental reimbursements & professional workshops
  • Maternity & parental leave
  • Hybrid & remote model with flexible working hours
  • On-site & remote company events throughout the year
  • Annual wellness stipend
  • Monthly tech stipend
  • Employee referral program
  • Premium access to QuillBot
Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools
agentic systemsorchestration platformstask decompositionintent recognitionmulti-step executionNLPmultimodal AIMLOpscompute economicssystem reliability
Soft Skills
leadershipstrategic claritytechnical credibilityteam performancecross-functional collaborationevidence-based decision makingorganizational restructuringglobal team coordinationcommunicationconviction in technical direction