Senior Director, AI Factory
The Opportunity: Senior Director, Engineering - AI Factory
This role is based in San Jose, CA
This role is based in San Jose, CA
FUNCTION at Nutanix:
Your role:
This role will lead the development and deployment of AI Factory solutions across various enterprises to include key responsibilities including:
- Building and scaling AI factories by creating reference architectures and models ensuring the delivery of continuous operations.
- Proven technical leadership with hands-on experience building scalable operational systems in highly complex environments.
- On-going collaboration with engineering teams, as well as technical product teams to guide product roadmap features and customer-specific requirements.
Requirements & Qualifications:
- Kubernetes Native Leadership: Proven track record of building and scaling production-grade platforms on Kubernetes (EKS, AKS, or On-Prem). You must deeply understand the "plumbing" of container orchestration at the infrastructure layer.
- Inference & Serving Expertise: Direct experience building or managing high-performance inference pipelines (vLLM, TGI, or NVIDIA NIM) and AI Gateways that handle rate-limiting, load balancing, and model routing.
- Platform Engineering Mindset: Experience building "Product-as-a-Service" for internal or external developers. You know how to create a seamless UX for AI Practitioners while maintaining the rigorous RBAC, security, and governance required by Enterprise IT.
- Distributed Systems Architecture: Strong technical foundation in building multi-cluster or hybrid-cloud control planes (MCP) that can manage workloads across diverse geographical or cloud boundaries.
- Strategic Execution: Ability to translate abstract market shifts (e.g., the move from RAG to Agentic AI) into a concrete engineering roadmap that bypasses "hype" for actual enterprise utility.
The "Strongly Desired" (The Differentiators)
- Hybrid-Cloud Savvy: Deep understanding of the Nutanix stack or similar hyper-converged infrastructures (HCI) and how they intersect with public cloud AI services.
- Fine-Tuning Mastery: Experience implementing automated pipelines for PEFT (Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning) such as LoRA/QLoRA within a multi-tenant environment.
- GPU Economics: Practical knowledge of GPU resource optimization, including fractional GPU sharing (MIG), energy-efficient inference, and cost-per-token optimization.
- Open-Source Contributor: Active involvement or leadership in the CNCF, Kubeflow, or broader LLM developer communities (Hugging Face, LangChain, etc.).
- Advanced Degree: An MS or PhD in Computer Science, with a focus on Distributed Systems or Machine Learning, is preferred—provided it is paired with a "builder" mentality.
Personal Attributes:
- Strategic thinker with a bias for action and results.
- Highly collaborative and adaptable, with strong relationship-building skills.
- Comfortable operating at both strategic and tactical levels.
- Passionate about driving impact and enabling others to succeed.
What You’ll Bring:
- Proven experience in AI development.
- Knowledge of the AI marketplace, technology.
- Strong commercial acumen and customer-centric mindset.
- Exceptional communication and influence skills, with credibility at VP+
- Ability to confidently present to the C-level.
- Demonstrated success in leading complex, cross-functional initiatives.
- Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, matrixed environment and navigate ambiguity with confidence.
Work Arrangement: Hybrid or Remote
This role can be remote or in a hybrid capacity. Should the role be within 50 miles of a Nutanix office, it will require coming into an office a minimum of 3 days per week. Additional team-specific guidance and norms will be provided by your manager.
FOR US - The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between USD $ and USD $ per year. However, base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a sign-on bonus, restricted stock units, and discretionary awards in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits (including 401(k) eligibility and various paid time off benefits such as vacation, sick time, and parental leave), dependent on the position offered. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.
If hired, employee will be in an “at-will position” and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors. Our application deadline is 40 days from the date of posting. In good faith, the posting may be removed prior to this date if the position is filled or extended in good faith.
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Nutanix is an equal opportunity employer.
Nutanix is an Equal Employment Opportunity and (in the U.S.) an Affirmative Action employer. Qualified applicants are considered for employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status or any other category protected by applicable law. We hire and promote individuals solely on the basis of qualifications for the job to be filled. We strive to foster an inclusive working environment that enables all our Nutants to be themselves and to do great work in a safe and welcoming environment, free of unlawful discrimination, intimidation or harassment. As part of this commitment, we will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please let us know by contacting [email protected].