Director, Software Engineering; AI Onsite - Reston, VA - Freewheel

Position: Director, Software Engineering (AI) Onsite - Reston, VA - Freewheel
Free Wheel, a Comcast company, provides comprehensive ad platforms for publishers, advertisers, and media buyers. Powered by premium video content, robust data, and advanced technology, we're making it easier for buyers and sellers to transact across all screens, data types, and sales channels. As a global company, we have offices in nine countries and can insert advertisements around the world.

Job Summary

This job guides AI engineering strategy and product innovation, overseeing the design and delivery of AI-enabled capabilities, agentic workflows, and intelligent automation across Free Wheel's applications. It ensures AI capabilities are launched responsibly into production with attention to quality, reliability, adoption, compliance, and measurable business impact. The role manages and develops engineering teams, aligns product, data, business, and executive stakeholders, and directs priorities and investments to deliver on Free Wheel's build-in and built-on AI vision.

Job Description

Preferred Qualifications

* 12+ years of software engineering experience, including AI/ML systems

* 5+ years managing, mentoring, and developing engineering teams at scale

* Proven experience launching AI-enabled products and bringing LLMs, ML models, agents, or intelligent workflows into production use

* Strong software engineering background, with experience designing scalable backend services and product capabilities using Python, Go, or similar technologies

* Experience enabling AI capabilities in cloud-based product environments, such as Azure, AWS, or GCP

* Strong understanding of how to evaluate, improve, and responsibly operate AI capabilities after launch, with attention to quality, reliability, adoption, and business impact

* Ability to translate business problems into scalable AI-enabled product solutions and guide teams from concept through launch and ongoing improvement

Job Description

* Creating, enabling, and driving innovation by bringing agentic workflows and AI capabilities into Free Wheel's applications, helping teams unlock new ways to automate work, improve decision-making, and deliver measurable product and business outcomes.

* Managing and developing engineering teams while working closely with product, data, business, and executive stakeholders to deliver on a build-in and built-on AI vision across Free Wheel's products, including clear cross-functional alignment and executive-level communication on AI strategy and initiatives.

* Defining the AI engineering strategy and roadmap in alignment with business priorities, product opportunities, and customer needs.

* Guiding teams in the design and delivery of AI-enabled product capabilities, including intelligent automation, decision-support experiences, and reusable patterns that can be applied across applications.

* Partnering with internal stakeholders and external partners to identify high-value AI opportunities, clarify business problems, and turn them into practical product and workflow improvements.

* Driving innovation in AI engineering by helping teams evaluate emerging capabilities, apply them to real business needs, and scale successful patterns across the organization.

* Building strong engineering leadership by hiring, mentoring, and developing high-performing teams that can deliver reliable, maintainable, and customer-focused AI capabilities.

* Developing and managing team priorities, staffing plans, and investment decisions to align AI engineering work with company goals and product outcomes.

* Guiding issue resolution and sharing insights on product usage, data quality, AI effectiveness, and opportunities to improve business and customer outcomes.

* Ensuring AI capabilities are delivered responsibly, with appropriate attention to data sensitivity, customer privacy, security expectations, and company policies.

* Leading adoption of LLMs, machine learning, and agentic capabilities in ways that support product innovation, measurable business value, and practical team execution.

* Consistent exercise of independent judgment and discretion in matters of significance.

* Regular, consistent and punctual attendance. Must be able to work nights and…