AI Engineering Manager

About Zena Tech

Zena Tech (Nasdaq: ZENA | FSE: 49Q) is a technology company specializing in AI drones, Drone as a Service (DaaS), enterprise SaaS, and quantum computing solutions for mission-critical business applications. Since 2017, the company has leveraged its software development expertise and expanded its drone design and manufacturing capabilities through Zena Drone to innovate and enhance customer inspection, monitoring, safety, security, compliance, and surveying processes.

Zena Tech serves over 100 enterprise software customers in law enforcement, government, and industrial sectors, with drones used in agriculture, defense, and logistics industries. The company has offices in North America, Europe, and the UAE.

Job Overview

ZenaAI is Zena Tech's defense AI engineering subsidiary, operating at CMMC Level 2. We are building a new Python and machine learning team in Baton Rouge and are looking for its first engineering manager. You will own delivery across biometric voice security, drone autonomy and perception, and secure audio products, and build the team's development environment inside a controlled, export-regulated boundary.

This is a chance to build an engineering function from the ground up, with real products and dated commitments to ship against.

Key Responsibilities

• Own delivery for all Baton Rouge Python and machine learning work, with estimates that hold up against program timelines.

• Make and document architecture decisions across the Voice Lock, Zena Quiet, and drone autonomy work streams so they share one coherent stack.

• Stand up the development environment inside the CMMC Level 2 boundary - source control, CI, and model training storage - with the compliance owner.

• Define and hold the boundary between export-controlled work done in Baton Rouge and commercial work done elsewhere.

• Coordinate with product engineering in Toronto and hardware teams in multiple countries, resolving dependencies before they become schedule slips.

• Travel 15–20% to Toronto, Europe, and customer and program sites.

Qualifications

• 7+ years building production Python systems, including 2+ years directly managing engineers.

• Has personally shipped machine learning into a production or fielded system.

• Experience working under export control, CMMC, DFARS , or a comparable controlled regime.

• Must be a U.S. citizen, and eligible to work in a CMMC Level 2 environment.

Preferred

• Defense, aerospace, or national lab background.

• Edge or embedded ML deployment experience, particularly on Qualcomm or similar NPU targets.

• Has built an engineering team from a standing start.

Benefits

· Health, dental, and vision insurance

· 401(k)

· Paid time off

Artificial Intelligence We use artificial intelligence to review and screen applications and materials. However, every candidate we move forward with is reviewed and selected, and all final hiring decisions are made by a member of our hiring team.