Scale’s mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world’s most important decisions. We work with leading enterprises to bring generative AI safely into production—powering real-world impact through rigorous evaluation, deployment, and execution.
The RoleThe Sr. Director, Forward Deployed Engineering (US East) will lead Scale’s enterprise customer engagements across the Eastern United States. This role sits at the intersection of customer leadership, applied AI, and execution—owning how Scale partners with Fortune 500 executives to design, build, and deploy AI-powered systems that deliver measurable business outcomes. As a regional leader and peer to Scale’s existing Forward Deployed leadership, you will manage and grow multidisciplinary teams of applied scientists and full-stack engineers, shape how we deliver agentic AI applications in customer environments, and set the bar for executive-level customer engagement. This is a high-impact leadership role in a period of regional expansion and organizational evolution.
You will:- Lead all US East enterprise customer engagements, serving as the senior technical and delivery executive for Scale’s most strategic accounts.
- Partner closely with Sales, Product, and Engineering leadership to support customer acquisition, expansion, and long-term success.
- Build and manage forward-deployed teams composed of applied scientists and full-stack software engineers, structured into customer-specific technical pods.
- Own end-to-end delivery execution for customer deployments, ensuring reliability, rigor, and measurable business impact.
- Guide teams in building production-grade, agentic AI applications for Fortune 500 enterprises.
- Establish and enforce an evals-first approach to customer deployments, ensuring performance, safety, and reliability standards are met.
- Lead senior-level technical conversations with customer executives, demonstrating Scale’s credibility as a trusted AI partner.
- Support technical upsell conversations by articulating architectural tradeoffs, capabilities, and future-state possibilities (with commercial ownership held by AEs).
- Hire, develop, and mentor forward-deployed leaders and ICs, including training teams on executive-level customer interaction and professional standards.
- Help shape Scale’s regional forward-deployed strategy as part of a broader global and US restructuring.
- 12+ years of experience in software engineering, applied ML, or AI systems, with significant leadership responsibility.
- Proven experience leading customer-facing technical teams delivering complex systems for large enterprise customers.
- Executive presence and credibility with senior Fortune 500 stakeholders, including experience navigating high-stakes technical discussions.
- Strong technical foundation in either applied machine learning or full-stack / distributed systems engineering (strength in one, fluency in the other).
- Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous customer needs into concrete technical solutions and delivery plans.
- Experience partnering with sales and product teams in pre-sales, expansion, and delivery contexts.
- A track record of building, scaling, and managing high-performing multidisciplinary teams.
- Experience deploying generative AI or agentic systems in production enterprise environments.
- Background in consulting, forward-deployed engineering, or professional services for technical products.
- Experience building evaluation frameworks for ML or AI system performance.
- Prior responsibility for regional or multi-account technical leadership.
Compensation packages at Scale for eligible roles include base salary, equity, and benefits. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position and may be inclusive of several career levels at Scale; it will be determined during the interview process based on work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, qualifications, interview performance, and relevant education or training. Scale employees in eligible roles are also granted equity based compensation, subject to Board of Director approval. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process, and confirm whether the hired role will be eligible for equity grant. You'll also receive benefits including, but not limited to: comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, a learning and development stipend, and generous PTO. Additionally, this role may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend.
PLEASE NOTE: Our policy requires a 90-day waiting period before reconsidering candidates for the same role. This allows us to ensure a fair and thorough evaluation of all applicants.
About Us:
At Scale, our mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions. Our products provide the high-quality data and full-stack technologies that power the world's leading models, and help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that deliver real impact. We work closely with industry leaders like Meta, Ernst & Young, Mayo Clinic, Time Inc., the Government of Qatar, and U.S. government agencies including the Army and Air Force. We are expanding our team to accelerate the development of AI applications.
We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status.
We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application or recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at [email protected]. Please see the United States Department of Labor's Know Your Rights poster for additional information.
We comply with the United States Department of Labor's Pay Transparency provision.
PLEASE NOTE: We collect, retain and use personal data for our professional business purposes, including notifying you of job opportunities that may be of interest and sharing with our affiliates. We limit the personal data we collect to that which we believe is appropriate and necessary to manage applicants’ needs, provide our services, and comply with applicable laws. Any information we collect in connection with your application will be treated in accordance with our internal policies and programs designed to protect personal data. Please see our privacy policy for additional information.
Skills Required
- 12+ years of experience in software engineering, applied ML, or AI systems with significant leadership responsibility.
- Proven experience leading customer-facing technical teams delivering complex systems for large enterprise customers.
- Executive presence and credibility with senior Fortune 500 stakeholders, including navigating high-stakes technical discussions.
- Strong technical foundation in applied machine learning or full-stack/distributed systems engineering (strength in one, fluency in the other).
- Ability to translate ambiguous customer needs into concrete technical solutions and delivery plans.
- Experience partnering with sales and product teams in pre-sales, expansion, and delivery contexts.
- Track record of building, scaling, and managing high-performing multidisciplinary teams.
- Experience deploying generative AI or agentic systems in production enterprise environments.
- Background in consulting, forward-deployed engineering, or professional services for technical products.
- Experience building evaluation frameworks for ML or AI system performance.
- Prior responsibility for regional or multi-account technical leadership.
Scale AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Scale AI and has not been reviewed or approved by Scale AI.
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Healthcare Strength — Company materials and third‑party pages describe comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage along with mental‑health services and an EAP. Health insurance is portrayed as strong, with options like HSA/FSA and indications of high premium coverage.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Descriptions highlight generous PTO, paid holidays and sick time, bereavement, volunteer time, and role‑dependent flexibility or remote options. This breadth is positioned as part of a supportive time‑off approach, with specifics varying by location.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Full‑time offers commonly include equity and an ESPP, which can meaningfully lift total compensation, especially in engineering and senior roles. Job postings and compensation snapshots consistently reference base‑plus‑equity packages aligned with competitive AI market pay.
Scale AI Insights
What We Do
Scale accelerates the development of AI applications by helping machine learning teams generate high-quality ground truth data. Our advanced LiDAR, image, video and NLP annotation APIs allow machine learning teams at companies like OpenAI, Lyft, Pinterest, and Airbnb focus on building differentiated models vs. labeling data.
