Senior Manager, AI Agent / ML Engineering

Nashville, TN · United StatesPosted Aug 6, 2026

The Senior Manager will lead a team of engineers while serving as a hands-on technical leader responsible for defining, building, and operating next-generation AI systems on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). This leader will set the architecture and engineering direction for production-grade agentic AI platforms, autonomous workflows, scalable inference infrastructure, and enterprise AI applications used in large-scale, business-critical environments.

This role requires an experienced engineering manager who can build and develop high-performing teams, translate ambiguous product and platform goals into a durable technical strategy, and drive execution across multiple organizations. The successful candidate will be accountable for hiring, mentoring, performance management, technical planning, and delivery, while remaining actively involved in system design, prototyping, coding, code reviews, operational readiness, and incident follow-up.

The ideal candidate combines deep distributed-systems expertise with practical, hands-on experience building AI agents and AI-native applications. This includes developing and orchestrating LLM-based agents, tools, APIs, memory systems, retrieval pipelines, evaluations, guardrails, and cloud-service integrations. The candidate should be comfortable writing production code, debugging complex systems, and guiding engineers through difficult architectural and implementation decisions.

The expectation is to lead the team in shipping, scaling, and operating reliable, secure, observable, and cost-efficient AI systems, while raising both the engineering and management bar across the organization. This leader will establish strong execution practices, promote operational excellence, and ensure the team delivers measurable business and customer outcomes.

Responsibilities

Lead and develop a team responsible for OCI AI platform capabilities, including agent execution, inference, orchestration, evaluation, and observability.
Set the technical direction for production-grade agentic AI systems that support reasoning, planning, tool use, multi-step workflows, and human escalation.
Remain hands-on in architecture, prototyping, coding, debugging, and code reviews for critical AI-agent components.
Guide the development of services for tool calling, memory, context management, MCP integration, retrieval, multi-agent coordination, policy enforcement, and evaluation.
Own delivery across distributed systems optimized for reliability, performance, security, cost, and multi-tenant operation.
Translate broad goals into roadmaps, staffing plans, milestones, and measurable outcomes.
Partner across infrastructure, security, data, product, and application teams to drive execution.
Establish AgentOps and LLMOps practices for tracing, monitoring, testing, safety guardrails, versioning, and production readiness.
Recruit, coach, and retain engineers while managing performance and developing senior technical leaders.
Own production outcomes, including reliability, security, cost efficiency, supportability, and delivery predictability.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, AI/ML, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
8+ years of software engineering experience, including ownership of production systems.
2+ years of engineering management experience, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and delivery ownership.
Proven ability to lead teams while remaining technically engaged in design, coding, reviews, debugging, and operations.
Deep experience with distributed systems, cloud platforms, or AI/ML infrastructure.
Hands-on experience building AI agents, autonomous workflows, tool-using systems, or multi-step orchestration.
Experience with frameworks such as LangGraph, LangChain, CrewAI, AutoGen, LlamaIndex, or similar tools.
Strong understanding of LLM patterns, including tool calling, RAG, memory, context management, evaluation, and safety.
Strong Python skills and experience with Kubernetes, Docker, observability, scalability, and fault tolerance.
Strong understanding of AI security, governance, access control, auditability, and operational risk.
Excellent communication and cross-functional leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience managing teams that build AI platforms, agent runtimes, inference systems, or developer platforms.
Experience with GPU inference optimization, model serving, workflow engines, or multi-tenant cloud services.
Experience integrating AI systems with enterprise APIs, databases, identity systems, vector stores, and policy layers.
Experience with agent evaluation, adversarial testing, regression gates, and production observability.
Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, or Copilot.
Experience in enterprise, cloud infrastructure, regulated, or mission-critical environments.
Experience in data science and applied machine learning, including classical ML techniques, deep learning models, model evaluation, and production deployment.

Minimum Job Qualifications

Education and/or Experience:

9 years of experience in software development

Bachelor’s of Technology (B.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 5 years of experience in software development

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 5 years of experience in software development

Master’s of Technology (M.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 3 years of experience in software development

Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 3 years of experience in software development

Doctorate in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 1 year of experience in software development.

Job Skills:

Same skills as prior level, plus:
- Agile Methodologies: Demonstrated ability to use agile methodologies to drive continuous improvement and product delivery.
- Automation: Demonstrated ability in or knowledge of automation, including designing, implementing, and managing automated tools, processes, or systems to streamline operations.
- Compliance: Demonstrated knowledge of and adherence to regulatory, legal, and organizational compliance requirements.
- Data Management: Demonstrated ability in or knowledge of data management, including designing, operationalizing, securing, and monitoring data pipelines.
- Data Integration: Demonstrated ability in or knowledge of data integration, including specifying and using services to load and manage data from various sources.
- Patent Innovation / Filing: Demonstrated ability to prepare, file, and manage patent applications for innovative products or technology.

Cloud – Cloud Platforms Experience:

3 years of professional experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle Cloud).

Testing and Automation Experience:

6 years of experience working in testing and automation at the system level.

Distributed Systems Experience:

2 years of experience working with delivering and operating large-scale distributed systems.

Preferred Job Qualifications

Education and/or Experience:

10 years of experience in software development

Bachelor’s of Technology (B.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 6 years of experience in software development

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 6 years of experience in software development

Master’s of Technology (M.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 4 years of experience in software development

Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 4 years of experience in software development

Doctorate in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 2 years of experience in software development.

People Leadership / Management Experience:

2 years of experience in a technical lead role with direct reports.