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Director of Artificial Intelligence

Sterling, Virginia, United States

Join Axon and be a Force for Good.

At Axon, we’re on a mission to Protect Life. We’re explorers, pursuing society’s most critical safety and justice issues with our ecosystem of devices and cloud software. Like our products, we work better together. We connect with candor and care, seeking out diverse perspectives from our customers, communities and each other.

Life at Axon is fast-paced, challenging and meaningful. Here, you’ll take ownership and drive real change. Constantly grow as you work hard for a mission that matters at a company where you matter.

Your Impact

As a Director of Machine Learning Engineering you will report directly to Axon’s VP of Engineering for Dedrone and be a critical member of the Dedrone Leadership team. You will be tasked with leading machine learning platform initiatives to harness Dedrone's vast and growing network of sensors, signals, and data to provide measurably differentiated outcomes for our public safety customers and the communities they serve.

As a machine learning engineering thought leader and key partner in Dedrone’s product and technology organization, you will identify key strategic opportunities and define, grow, lead, and retain a world-class team of ML Platform engineers. The ideal candidate will have a proven software engineering and scalable distributed systems architectural background as well as a consistent track record of success with hands-on execution and demonstrated ability to manage machine learning platform engineering teams. You will actively collaborate with peer engineering, science and product teams to ship and operate services at scale. We need someone willing to be bold and more than willing to take on challenges. By accelerating adoption of our technologies, you'll help protect life in public safety for officers and the communities they serve around the world.

What You’ll Do

Location: Hybrid from Seattle, WA or Sterling, VA

  • Operate as a thought leader and visionary, with the ability to guide, influence and inspire peak performance, innovation and adoption of the latest engineering practices to enable AI technologies across the Axon value chain .
  • Grow and lead a world-class team of machine learning platform engineers that deliver novel, strategic AI-enabled solutions with diverse, industry-leading skills in distributed machine Learning training workflows, edge AI, data engineering and tools both in the cloud and on-device.
  • Collaborate with science, tech and product teams on defining, architecting and building data ingestion systems and model training pipelines from experimentation to deployment, monitoring and continuous performance improvement.
  • Bring your industry expertise to challenge existing assumptions and introduce new distributed system architectures including high-throughput machine learning training pipelines and low-latency model hosting technologies
  • Develop a collaborative and inclusive team that fosters a culture of ownership, experimentation, and innovation while joining forces with product teams to deliver working solutions for our Customers

What You Bring

  • Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Mathematics or an equivalent highly technical field
  • 10+ years of software engineering experience and a proven track record of successfully architecting and building highly available, low latency systems for high traffic applications
  • 6+ years in a leadership/management role with a solid track record of building and leading engineering teams
  • Fluency in Scala (or Java) as well as prior experience working with machine learning workflows in python
  • Designed and built multiple complex, scalable, high throughput, low latency streaming/batch processing machine learning pipelines for both data flows and algorithm execution
  • Advanced knowledge and hands-on experience with major cloud environments (such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud)
  • Exemplary problem solving skills and ability to dive into system architecture, design, performance metrics, code, test plans, project plans, deployments and operations
  • Comfort communicating and interacting with scientists, engineers and product managers

Preferred Qualifications

  • Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Mathematics or an equivalent highly technical field
  • 12+ years of software engineering experience building and shipping data science AI enabled products
  • Demonstrated knowledge and experience with machine learning platforms from major providers (such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud)
  • Experience with IoT/Edge AI and optimizing ML pipelines to run on-device with constrained compute, power and latency budgets
  • Previous experience leading multiple geographically distributed teams

Benefits that Benefit You

  • Competitive salary and 401k with employer match
  • Discretionary paid time off
  • Paid parental leave for all
  • Medical, Dental, Vision plans
  • Fitness Programs
  • Emotional & Mental Wellness support
  • Learning & Development programs
  • Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
  • And yes, we have snacks in our offices

Benefits listed herein may vary depending on the nature of your employment and the location where you work.

Location: This role is based out of our Seattle, WA or Sterling, VA office and follows a hybrid schedule. We rely on in-person collaboration and ask that team members work onsite Tuesdays through Fridays, with the flexibility to work remotely on Mondays, unless there is an approved workplace accommodation. We believe that connection fuels innovation, and our in-office culture is designed to foster meaningful teamwork, mentorship, and shared success.

#LI-Hybrid

 

Don’t meet every single requirement? That's ok. At Axon, we Aim Far. We think big with a long-term view because we want to reinvent the world to be a safer, better place. We are also committed to building diverse teams that reflect the communities we serve.

Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they check every box in the job description. If you’re excited about this role and our mission to Protect Life but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification listed here, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Important Notes

The above job description is not intended as, nor should it be construed as, exhaustive of all duties, responsibilities, skills, efforts, or working conditions associated with this job. The job description may change or be supplemented at any time in accordance with business needs and conditions.

Some roles may also require legal eligibility to work in a firearms environment.

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Axon’s mission is to Protect Life and is committed to the well-being and safety of its employees as well as Axon’s impact on the environment. All Axon employees must be aware of and committed to the appropriate environmental, health, and safety regulations, policies, and procedures. Axon employees are empowered to report safety concerns as they arise and activities potentially impacting the environment.

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