Join us in bringing joy to customer experience. Five9 is a leading provider of cloud contact center software, bringing the power of cloud innovation to customers worldwide.
Living our values everyday results in our team-first culture and enables us to innovate, grow, and thrive while enjoying the journey together. We celebrate diversity and foster an inclusive environment, empowering our employees to be their authentic selves.
AI Engineering Manager
ABOUT THE ROLE
Five9 is a leading provider of cloud contact center software, bringing the power of Five9 AI and automation to organizations worldwide. The Enterprise-AI Team drives Five9's internal adoption of AI — turning emerging capability into real business outcomes across the company.
The AI Engineering Manager leads the team that builds and operates Five9's internal AI solutions — the AI Automation Engineers who build solutions and automations, and the AI Platform Engineers who build and run the platform underneath them. This is a hands-on role: at least 30% of your time is spent building, reviewing, and unblocking work alongside the team, primarily in Claude — Claude Code and the Claude API / agent tooling.
The rest is people leadership — managing performance, mentoring engineers, and guiding growth, while balancing delivery against the team's long-term technical health. You partner closely with the solutions architect on technical design, the program manager on roadmap and prioritization, and the enablement lead on adoption, so what the team builds ships, holds up in production, and reaches the people who need it.
HOW YOU CONTRIBUTE
- Team leadership & people management — Lead, mentor, and develop the AI Automation and AI Platform Engineers; manage performance, run regular 1:1s, and guide career growth.
- Hands-on project work (30%+ of your time) — Personally build, review, and ship real project work alongside the team — solutions, automations, and platform tasks — primarily in Claude (Claude Code, the Claude API, and agent / MCP tooling).
- Technical excellence & standards — Drive best practices in Claude-based development, code review, and design quality; hold the team — and your own work — to the architect's standards.
- Delivery & roadmap execution — Partner with the program manager and business stakeholders to plan and sequence delivery; balance short-term commitments against long-term technical health.
- Cross-functional partnership — Work closely with the solutions architect on technical design, and with platform, security, and other engineering teams to keep the team's output integrated and secure.
- Quality, security & standards adherence — Ensure everything the team ships — including your own work — meets security, data-classification, and responsible-AI requirements.
- Coaching & growth — Support the team's professional growth through coaching, training, and knowledge-sharing; create real opportunities for skill development.
- Troubleshooting & unblocking — Get hands-on with complex technical problems — in Claude-driven builds and platform issues alike — and drive them to resolution.
- Continuous currency — Stay current on Claude and the broader AI-augmented engineering landscape so your own craft, and the team's, keep pace.
SKILLS, COMPETENCIES & QUALIFICATIONS — REQUIRED
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- 8+ years in software or AI engineering, with 2+ years in a leadership role — including a track record of personally shipping production work, not only overseeing it.
- Demonstrated hands-on proficiency building with Claude — Claude Code and/or the Claude API / agent tooling — in a you-direct / AI-executes / you-verify working style.
- Hands-on cloud-native delivery fundamentals: Git, automated testing, CI / CD, and cloud deployment (Google Cloud preferred).
- Working fluency with the platform layer the team depends on: infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), containers / orchestration, and MLOps / LLMOps basics (model / agent serving, evaluation, versioning).
- Solid understanding of integration patterns, APIs, and data-management practices in cloud-deployed systems.
- Excellent communication skills, a strategic mindset, and the ability to collaborate across technical and business teams in a fast-paced environment.
SKILLS, COMPETENCIES & QUALIFICATIONS — PREFERRED
- Experience with Google Cloud services and infrastructure-as-code / CI-CD delivery pipelines.
- Experience personally building AI / LLM-powered features, agents, or automations in Claude — not only directing others' builds.
- Contact center / CX technology exposure (Five9 or comparable).
- Experience partnering with product, design, or business stakeholders to shape a delivery roadmap.
- Prior experience standing up or scaling an engineering team's practices from an early stage.
WHERE THIS ROLE SITS
- Primary focus: hands-on leadership of the AI engineering / builder team — At least 30% hands-on in the team's own project work — building and unblocking in Claude alongside the AI Automation Engineers and AI Platform Engineers — plus people leadership and delivery execution for both.
- Owns hands-on delivery, team leadership & people growth — Combines direct, in-Claude project execution with day-to-day people leadership for the builder team — coaching, performance management, and career growth.
- Reports to the Sr. Director; partners with the program manager — Coordinates roadmap and prioritization with the program manager; reports team outcomes up to the Sr. Director, Enterprise AI.
KEY RELATIONSHIPS
Direct reports: the AI Automation Engineer(s) and AI Platform Engineer(s). Reports to: Sr. Director, Enterprise AI. Key partners: the Principal AI Solutions Architect (technical design) · the AI Program Manager (roadmap and prioritization) · the AI Enablement & Learning Lead (adoption) · information security and enterprise architecture. At least 30% of this role is hands-on in the team's own Claude-based project work, not purely oversight.
Five9 embraces diversity and is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better we are. Five9 is an equal opportunity employer.
View our privacy policy, including our privacy notice to California residents here: https://www.five9.com/pt-pt/legal.
Note: Five9 will never request that an applicant send money as a prerequisite for commencing employment with Five9.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
- 8+ years of experience in software or AI engineering
- 2+ years of experience in an engineering leadership role
- Track record of personally shipping production work
- Hands-on proficiency building with Claude, Claude Code, and/or the Claude API and agent tooling
- Hands-on experience with Git, automated testing, CI/CD, and cloud deployment
- Working knowledge of Terraform, containers, orchestration, and MLOps/LLMOps fundamentals
- Understanding of integration patterns, APIs, and cloud data-management practices
- Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills
- Experience with Google Cloud services and infrastructure-as-code/CI-CD delivery pipelines
- Experience building AI or LLM-powered features, agents, or automations in Claude
- Contact center or customer experience technology exposure
- Experience partnering with product, design, or business stakeholders on delivery roadmaps
- Experience establishing or scaling engineering team practices from an early stage
Five9 Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Five9 and has not been reviewed or approved by Five9.
-
Healthcare Strength — Employer-paid employee premiums, multiple plan options, and broad coverage across medical, dental, vision, disability, FSAs, and EAP are emphasized as core elements of the package. These features position healthcare as a standout component of total rewards.
-
Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants and an ESPP are highlighted as meaningful parts of total compensation. Feedback suggests these stock components can materially enhance overall pay when company performance is favorable.
-
Fair & Transparent Compensation — Public job postings include salary ranges and company materials describe formal peer benchmarking of pay. These practices indicate structure and visibility around compensation decisions.
Five9 Insights
What We Do
Five9 is an industry-leading provider of cloud contact center solutions, bringing the power of cloud innovation to more than 2,000 customers worldwide and facilitating billions of customer engagements annually. The Five9 Intelligent Cloud Contact Center provides digital engagement, analytics, workflow automation, workforce optimization, and practical AI to help customers reimagine their customer experience. Designed to be reliable, secure, compliant, and scalable, the Five9 platform helps increase agent and supervisor productivity, connects the contact center to the business, and ultimately deliver tangible business results including increased revenue and enhanced customer trust and loyalty
