Starburst · 20 hours ago
Director, Engineering - Head of Applied AI
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Director/Executive
10+ years expStarburst is a data platform for analytics, applications, and AI, helping organizations unlock data potential for innovation. The Director, Engineering - Head of Applied AI will lead engineering initiatives related to Starburst's AI platform, managing a high-performing team and collaborating across various teams to ensure AI cohesion and execution.
AnalyticsBig DataDatabaseInformation TechnologyOpen SourceSoftware
Responsibilities
Own engineering execution across AI workflows, agents, and model integrations
Partner with PM and GTM teams to define roadmap and co-own AI strategy
Build and manage a high-performing AI engineering team (across UX, backend, infra)
Collaborate across Cloud, Platform, and Product teams to ensure AI cohesion
Establish architecture principles for inference, vector search, and agentic pipelines
Represent Starburst Engineering in customer briefings and strategic GTM efforts
Qualification
Required
10+ years engineering experience, 5+ in AI/ML systems, data platforms, or infra
Deep understanding of LLM lifecycle: embedding, inference, RAG, governance
Proven leadership of platform teams or AI infra in production
Familiarity with LangChain, LlamaIndex, NVIDIA NIMs, or similar frameworks
Hands-on experience with Iceberg, Trino, or other modern data platforms is a plus
Excellent communication and execution skills
Ability to Travel: This role will require occasional in-person travel for purposes including but not limited to new hire onboarding, team and department offsites, customer engagements, and other company events. Actual travel expectations may vary by role and business needs
Benefits
Competitive pay
Attractive stock grants
Flexible paid time off
Company
Starburst
Starburst offers a data lakehouse platform unifying access to distributed data across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.
501-1000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Starburst has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (6)
2024 (5)
2023 (9)
2022 (7)
2021 (4)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$414MKey Investors
CitiAlkeon CapitalAndreessen Horowitz
2025-05-19Series Unknown
2022-02-09Series D· $250M
2021-01-06Series C· $100M
Leadership Team
Justin Borgman
Chairman & CEO
Anu Sudarsan
Staff Software Engineer and Co-founder
Recent News
Company data provided by crunchbase