Head of AI – Program Technology Engineering

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States, +3 more locations.

📋 Description

• Transform IRC's AI strategy and program priorities into a prioritized technical roadmap.

• Make decisions on build-vs-buy-vs-partner and establish the architectural direction for AI systems that support programs.

• Direct the design and development of AI-driven, program-focused solutions, which include agentic systems, predictive analytics, and AI diagnostics.

• Manage and develop a team of engineers, applied AI engineers, machine learning specialists, and quality assurance specialists.

• Set engineering quality standards, development methodologies, and documentation practices.

• Maintain a prioritized backlog and oversee team capacity in relation to demand.

• Advance AI development and DevOps practices.

• Collaborate with program leaders in health, education, protection, resettlement, and emergency response to co-create field-ready solutions.

• Work alongside Enterprise Applications and DevOps teams on handoffs, integrations, infrastructure dependencies, and engineering standards.

• Lead strategic collaborations with frontier AI organizations such as Anthropic and OpenAI.

• Design and manage high-availability architectures in Microsoft Azure, ensuring redundancy, security, backup, and recovery strategies.

• Research and propose AI/ML technology products, services, and standards.

• Supervise deployment pipelines, continuous integration/continuous deployment automation, infrastructure-as-code, and quality assurance processes.

• Ensure application availability and performance through monitoring, scaling, and proactive operations management.

• Monitor and optimize cloud expenses and model-inference costs.

• Maintain technical and policy documentation.

• Represent IRC in technical discussions with partners, peer organizations, donors, and in the humanitarian and AI sectors.

• Report directly to the Chief Information Officer and collaborate closely with the SVP for Research, Innovation, AI, and People & Culture.

⛳️ Requirements

• Practical experience in building and deploying production AI systems, including agentic frameworks, large language model applications, retrieval-augmented generation systems, computer vision, or applied machine learning pipelines.

• Strong full-stack capabilities in Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, and contemporary frameworks.

• Experience with cloud architecture; preference for Azure, with transferable skills from AWS/GCP.

• Familiarity with AI services, DevOps pipelines, and efficient scaling practices.

• Working knowledge of data security and privacy protocols for sensitive or personally identifiable information.

• 7–10+ years of experience in software engineering or technical product development.

• At least 3 years of experience leading engineers in a managerial or technical lead capacity.

• Proven ability to build or enhance strong engineering teams.

• Capability to engage non-technical leaders as a peer and effectively translate between technical and non-technical contexts.

• Comfortable operating across global teams, time zones, and diverse contexts.

• Genuine passion for making a humanitarian impact.

• A humble, human-centered approach with respect for those closest to the issue.

• Technical curiosity and a forward-thinking mindset.

• Preferred experience deploying AI in low-resource, low-bandwidth, or offline settings.

• Prior experience with humanitarian, development, or global health organizations is preferred.

• Proficiency in French or Arabic is preferred.

🏝️ Benefits

• Flexible remote work options.

• Hybrid/remote work availability.

• Occasional travel may be necessary for partner meetings, field engagements, and sector conferences.