Director, Enterprise AI & Machine Learning Engineering

Overview

Instacart’s Enterprise AI team is building the next generation of intelligent solutions for retailers. We are seeking a Director of Enterprise AI Engineering and Machine Learning to lead the development of agentic AI products that help retailers solve complex business challenges and unlock new opportunities.

In this role, you will work at the intersection of engineering, machine learning, data science, product, consulting, and forward-deployed engineering. You will partner directly with retailers and internal stakeholders to define ambitious opportunities, shape technical strategy, and deliver innovative solutions in a rapidly evolving, zero-to-one product environment.

This is an opportunity to help establish a new area of innovation at Instacart while leading teams through the full product development lifecycle—from identifying customer needs and exploring emerging technologies to building, deploying, and scaling production-ready AI systems.

About the Job

• Lead the engineering and machine learning strategy for agentic AI solutions designed to address the needs of Instacart’s retail partners.
• Build, mentor, and inspire high-performing engineering and science teams, creating an environment that supports technical excellence, experimentation, and strong execution.
• Partner directly with retailers, product leaders, consultants, data scientists, machine learning engineers, and forward-deployed engineers to translate complex business problems into impactful AI products.
• Guide the development of systems that combine advanced machine learning, data, software engineering, and agentic capabilities, with an emphasis on reliability, scalability, usability, and measurable customer value.
• Establish direction in a zero-to-one product space, balancing long-term technical strategy with the need to move quickly, learn from early deployments, and adapt to changing customer and business requirements.
• Represent Enterprise AI across the organization, communicating tradeoffs, progress, risks, and opportunities to senior stakeholders and building alignment across technical and commercial teams.

You will be joining a fast-paced environment where the technology, customer needs, and product direction will continue to evolve. Success will require comfort with ambiguity, a willingness to engage deeply in both strategy and execution, and the judgment to make thoughtful decisions while building new capabilities from the ground up.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience building and deploying agentic AI, generative AI, or machine learning products in production environments.
• Experience leading engineering, machine learning, data science, or applied science teams through product development and delivery.
• Experience partnering with product, business, customer-facing, and technical stakeholders to define requirements and deliver solutions to complex problems.
• Strong understanding of machine learning development practices, software engineering principles, data systems, and the operational considerations required to scale AI applications.
• Demonstrated ability to set technical direction, prioritize work, manage ambiguity, and deliver results in a fast-changing environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep technical expertise in agentic systems, large language models, machine learning platforms, or related areas of applied artificial intelligence.
• Experience delivering applied machine learning products at significant scale, including systems used by external customers or business partners.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives that span engineering, machine learning, data science, product, consulting, and customer-facing teams.
• Experience working directly with retailers, commerce platforms, or other enterprise customers to translate operational challenges into technology solutions.
• A track record of creating clarity and momentum in zero-to-one product environments while maintaining high standards for quality, responsible development, and customer impact.

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