Senior Engineering Manager, Applied AI Initiatives

Block is one company built from many blocks, all united by the same purpose of economic empowerment. The blocks that form our foundational teams - People, Finance, Counsel, Hardware, Information Security, Platform Infrastructure Engineering, and more - provide support and guidance at the corporate level. They work across business groups and around the globe, spanning time zones and disciplines to develop inclusive People policies, forecast finances, give legal counsel, safeguard systems, nurture new initiatives, and more. Every challenge creates possibilities, and we need different perspectives to see them all. Bring yours to Block.
Are you interested in helping define the future of AI at Block?
We are looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to lead our newly created AI Tools in the office of the CTO (OCTO) Developer Experience. The AI Tools team is a global team whose role is to accelerate availability of emerging and future technologies and solutions for Blocks engineers.
Within Developer Experience we are passionate about improving engineering velocity and productivity, the AI Tools team in particular will apply innovative techniques to lift engineering velocity and create reusable tools that will be integrated across all aspects of software development lifecycle.
Ideally you will come from a product engineering background and have prior experience delivering products from experiment all the way through to adoption. This role requires curiosity, passion for AI and ability to keep pace with the ever changing AI landscape.
You Will:

• Lead multiple squads of server and platform engineers to build and integrate AI powered tools into every days tasks
• As the new AI Engineering Manager, you lead a team of engineers and collaborate closely with product and platform teams to build AI (Artificial Intelligence) solutions grounded in consistent architectures that have proven repeatability with customers.
• Excel in working in ambiguous environments
• Have a proven track record of working collaboratively across business partners to solve organizational wide problems.
• Improve developer productivity and engineering velocity by delivering AI assisted solutions to automate complex processes
• Partner closely with the internal MLE , Product and design counterparts to build AI powered solutions that have an immediate impact on our internal customers.
• Collaborate across teams at Block to develop tailored AI solutions by understanding the problems of cross-functional stakeholders
• Build a world-class team by hiring, motivating and retaining exceptional talent, coaching and developing engineers and managers, cultivating pragmatic engineering decision-making, and leveraging your technical expertise to constantly raise the bar
• Foster ownership, inclusiveness, accountability, pragmatism, and urgency in the team
• Lead the design, development, and maintenance of scalable and high-quality developer tooling that leverages AI technologies to improve engineering velocity and enable efficiency across all of Block engineering.
• Drive the end-to-end solution development lifecycle, from requirements gathering, ideation, quick prototyping to implementation and technical validation.
• Stay current with the latest developments in AI technologies, latest industry trends and bring ideas and insights to the team to drive innovation.

Qualifications
You have

• 8+ years experience working on complex systems and delivering quality software
• 5+ years experience directly managing engineers and leading high-performing engineering teams, (including providing mentorship, feedback, and investing in the career growth of your team members)
• Experience leading multiple streams of work
• Ability to build strong rapport, trust, and influence with partners and stakeholders across Block
• A track record of building world class engineering teams that are highly-functional, collaborative and inclusive
• Leadership style with a people-first approach, can lead a conversation rather than dictate it, and are empathetic to conflicting viewpoints
• Entrepreneurial mindset, with demonstrated experience working in an experimental, startup like environment.
• A customer first approach to problem solving. In Developer Experience, our customers are internal developers.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to build strong relationships with cross-functional teams and both technical and non technical stakeholders.
• Boundless curiosity, persistence and a desire to get things done

Preferred Qualifications

• 2+ years of experience, expertise and thought leadership in digital transformation opportunities across AI.
• Experience with design engineering, customer workshops, defining customer problem statements.
• Experience with the open-source ecosystem.
• High level familiarity with large language models (LLM), prompt engineering and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) architectures.

Technologies we use and teach:

• Kotlin, Java
• HTTP, JSON, gRPC, and Protocol Buffers
• MySQL and noSQL databases
• Event-driven architecture
• AWS

Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) is a global technology company with a focus on financial services. Made up of Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL, and TBD, we build tools to help more people access the economy. Square helps sellers run and grow their businesses with its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services. With Cash App, anyone can easily send, spend, or invest their money in stocks or Bitcoin. Spiral (formerly Square Crypto) builds and funds free, open-source Bitcoin projects. Artists use TIDAL to help them succeed as entrepreneurs and connect more deeply with fans. TBD is building an open developer platform to make it easier to access Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies without having to go through an institution.