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Spark Foundry · 5 hours ago

Associate Director, Machine Learning & AI Engineering

New York, NY

Full-time

Onsite

Senior Level, Lead/Staff, Director/Executive

$111K/yr - $174K/yr

5+ years exp

Spark Foundry is a global media agency focused on enhancing brand engagement through innovative media strategies. The Associate Director, ML & AI Engineering will lead the design and delivery of scalable machine learning and AI solutions, ensuring high-quality execution and collaboration with analytics and media teams.

AdvertisingMarketing

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Own the technical design and architecture for GenAI and ML solutions end to end

Define standards for LLM usage, RAG patterns, evaluation, and production readiness

Make architectural tradeoffs across scalability, cost, latency, and model quality

Ensure GenAI solutions are secure, observable, and built for real-world use

Lead development of GenAI applications, including LLM workflows, RAG pipelines, and inference services

Build and optimize data pipelines and feature workflows to support GenAI and traditional ML use cases

Develop production-grade APIs and backend services using cloud-native and distributed systems

Troubleshoot complex issues across data quality, retrieval accuracy, model behavior, and system performance

Drive priority AI initiatives from concept through production deployment

Break down ambiguous problems into clear technical tasks, milestones, and MVPs

Own delivery timelines, dependencies, and technical risk management

Partner with stakeholders to balance speed, scope, and long-term maintainability

Serve as the primary technical point of contact for GenAI and ML initiatives

Translate business workflows into scalable technical designs

Support stakeholder and client discussions requiring deep technical context

Ensure alignment between upstream data sources and downstream AI consumption

Leverage and extend existing AWS and Databricks infrastructure for GenAI workloads

Integrate vector databases, orchestration frameworks, and ML platforms into a cohesive stack

Establish monitoring, logging, and alerting AI pipelines, cost, latency, and quality

Promote secure, compliant, and cost-aware engineering practices

Mentor engineers and analysts through design reviews, code reviews, and technical guidance

Support onboarding and skill development for GenAI and ML capabilities

Foster a collaborative, high-ownership engineering culture

Identify opportunities to simplify, automate, and modernize AI systems

Evaluate new GenAI tools, models, and platforms and recommend adoption when appropriate

Contribute to documentation, knowledge sharing, and long-term technical roadmap planning

Qualification

GenAI applicationsML solutions architectureData engineeringCloud platforms (AWS)PythonSQLDistributed data processingMLOpsData modelingAgile methodologyTechnical leadershipProblem-solvingCollaboration

Required

5+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, or platform development

Proven ability to lead technical initiatives end-to-end

Hands-on experience shipping GenAI / LLM-powered applications

Strong understanding of RAG architectures, prompt engineering, and orchestration frameworks

Experience with vector databases for semantic search

Ability to build functional frontends (Streamlit, Gradio, React, etc.)

Strong experience designing and building scalable data and analytics systems

Advanced proficiency in SQL and strong experience with Python or similar languages

Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred)

Experience with distributed data processing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Databricks, Hadoop)

Experience with orchestration and ETL tools such as Airflow, AWS Glue, Qubole, or similar

Strong understanding of data modeling, system integration, and performance optimization

Proven track record of shipping tools users actually adopt

Experience working with Databricks, Redshift, Presto, or similar technologies

Familiarity with ML pipelines and collaboration with data science teams

Knowledge of embeddings, evaluation, and fine-tuning tradeoffs

MLOps experience (deployment, monitoring, LLM evaluation)

Experience in media, marketing, or digital analytics environments

Prior experience acting as a tech lead or senior engineer mentoring others

Benefits

Medical coverage

Dental

Vision

Disability

401K

Parental and family care leave

Family forming assistance

Tuition reimbursement

Flexible time off

Company

Spark Foundry

Glassdoor3.9

Spark Foundry is one of six global media agency brands within Publicis Media.

Founded in 2016

New York, New York, USA

1001-5000 employees

http://www.sparkfoundryww.com/

H1B Sponsorship

Spark Foundry 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 (79)

2024 (30)

2023 (8)

2022 (3)

2021 (5)

2020 (3)