Browse Jobs
Explore open roles across India.Explore active software roles. Sign up to apply and get AI match scores.
Top MatchesTop Job Matches
Loading jobs…
Back to Browse Jobs
Handshake
Director, Applied Machine Learning
Handshake
San Francisco•Hybrid•Salary•5-8 Yrs•1 day ago
Job description
Applied MLDirector LevelAI InnovationEngineering LeadershipResearch-to-Production
Overview
As Director of Applied ML, you'll lead the function that sits at the intersection of frontier AI research and enterprise-scale delivery. You'll own three core pillars: post-training and RL environments, scaled post-training infrastructure, and strategic project support across our lab partnerships. You think like an applied researcher, lead like an operator, and move fluidly between technical depth and client-facing strategy.
Responsibilities
- Lead post-training and RL environment strategy
- Build and scale the infrastructure and team needed to run post-training at scale across multiple applied use cases
- Own strategic project support across lab engagements — leading your team through a dynamic, evolving roadmap rather than executing the work solo
- Manage and grow a team including AI Engineers, Research Scientists and AI Forward Deployed Engineers, with a path toward managing managers as the org scales
- Partner directly with AI lab researchers and internal stakeholders across engineering and operations, translating ambiguous priorities into clear direction for your team
- Maintain direct customer relationships, following up, communicating progress, and building trust with technical partners
- Bring organizational maturity to a fast-growing team: solve today's problems with today's resources while planning several steps ahead
- Stay current on the frontier: RL, post-training, and evaluation methods, bringing relevant insight into both team strategy and customer conversations
Qualifications
- Experience leading and growing technical teams, ideally with a research background in applied ML or AI
- Technical depth in applied AI systems design and model post-training (GRPO/PPO, SFT, or similar) enough to support a research-leaning team, though you don't need to have trained frontier models yourself
- Experience building and scaling teams or infrastructure in an applied, production environment
- Strong cross-functional leadership, comfortable working across engineering and operations, and managing shifting timelines with a team in tow
- Excellent client-facing communication skills — you can translate technical work into business impact and hold your own with both researchers and customers
- Organizational maturity and comfort with ambiguity — you'll need to be creative in solving problems as they arrive
Nice to have
- Prior lab experience deploying or training agents for applied, real-world use cases
- Experience managing managers or scaling a team through multiple growth stages
- Familiarity with evaluation frameworks, annotation tooling, or human feedback collection at scale
Education
- Bachelor’s degree required in computer science or related field
Benefits
- Equity in a fast-growing company
- 401(k) match, competitive compensation, financial coaching
- Paid parental leave, fertility benefits, parental coaching
- Medical, dental, and vision, mental health support, $500 wellness stipend
- Learning stipend: $2,000
- Commute support, free lunch, gym in our SF office
- Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days
- Team outings & referral bonuses