Director, AI Engineering

Cornerstone OnDemand; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 8,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Cornerstone OnDemand in Hyderabad, India seeks a Director of AI Engineering to lead multiple software and AI teams responsible for scalable, reliable platforms. You will set technical vision, drive engineering excellence, and align delivery with business objectives.

The role demands deep hands-on leadership, architecture strategy, and people development across distributed teams, with a focus on cloud-native systems, CI/CD, and secure, high-performance software delivery.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles managing managers or multiple teams.
• Proven track record of leading large-scale, complex software programs and distributed engineering organizations.

Responsibilities

• Lead and oversee multiple engineering teams across the full software development lifecycle.
• Define and drive technical vision and architecture strategy for scalable, resilient systems.
• Own end-to-end delivery across portfolios, ensuring alignment with priorities, timelines, and quality.
• Establish and standardize engineering best practices, including design reviews, code quality, testing, and CI/CD.
• Drive consistency and excellence in software development, reliability, and productivity.
• Partner with Product, UX, QA, and other stakeholders to align roadmaps and execution.
• Oversee management of technical debt, system performance, and operational reliability at scale.
• Ensure incident management frameworks, root cause analyses, and continuous improvement.

Skills

Software engineering

Engineering leadership

Cloud platforms

Microservices

CI/CD

Distributed systems

API design

Reliability

Data systems

DevOps

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/Engineering

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

AWS

Azure

Job description

We're looking for a Director, AI Engineering. This role is Office Based, Hyderabad Office.

Director, AI Engineering - India

Cornerstone OnDemand is looking for a Director of AI Engineering who will lead and scale multiple teams of software and AI engineers to deliver high-quality, scalable, and reliable software solutions. You will be responsible for setting technical vision, driving engineering excellence, and ensuring successful delivery of strategic initiatives aligned with business objectives. This role combines organizational leadership, technical strategy, and people leadership to build and sustain a high-performing engineering organization.

In this role, you will…

Engineering Leadership & Delivery

• Lead and oversee multiple engineering teams across the full software development lifecycle - from requirements and architecture through implementation, testing, deployment, and operations.


• Define and drive technical vision and architecture strategy, ensuring systems are scalable, resilient, and aligned with long-term organizational goals.


• Own end-to-end delivery across portfolios/programs, ensuring alignment with business priorities, timelines, and quality expectations.


• Establish and standardize engineering best practices across teams, including design reviews, code quality standards, testing strategies, and CI/CD adoption.


• Drive consistency and excellence in software development processes, system reliability, and engineering productivity.


• Partner closely with Product, UX, QA, and other stakeholders to ensure effective planning, prioritization, and execution of roadmaps.


• Oversee proactive management of technical debt, system performance, and operational reliability at scale.


• Ensure effective incident management frameworks, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement for system uptime and performance.

People Leadership & Organizational Development

• Lead, mentor, and grow engineering managers and senior technical leaders, building a scalable organizational structure.


• Drive hiring strategy to attract and retain top engineering talent across levels.


• Establish clear career frameworks, succession planning, and leadership development initiatives.


• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, inclusion, and continuous learning across the organization.


• Provide ongoing coaching, performance management, and feedback to leaders and their teams.


• Oversee resource planning, organizational design, and capacity management to align with strategic priorities.

Strategy & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Partner with executive leadership to define and execute long-term technology and engineering strategy.


• Drive engineering roadmaps aligned with product vision and business objectives.


• Provide regular executive-level updates, including progress, risks, and investment trade-offs.


• Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies, tools, and platforms to enhance innovation and efficiency.


• Lead organizational improvements across Agile practices, delivery frameworks, and operational processes.


• Collaborate with DevOps, Infrastructure, Security, and Data teams to ensure operational excellence, scalability, and compliance.


• Represent engineering in executive forums, cross-functional planning, and architectural governance discussions.

Requirements

You’ve Got What It Takes If You Have…

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.


• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles managing managers or multiple teams.


• Proven track record of leading large-scale, complex software programs and distributed engineering organizations.

Technical Expertise

• Strong background in software engineering, system design, and distributed systems architecture.


• Hands-on experience in technologies such as Java, C#, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, or Go (prior coding experience expected, even if not day-to-day).


• Deep expertise in cloud platforms, microservices architecture, and API design patterns.


• Strong knowledge of data systems (SQL/NoSQL), caching, and large-scale data architecture.


• Experience with CI/CD, DevOps practices, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and infrastructure-as-code.


• Solid understanding of security, scalability, performance engineering, and reliability best practices.

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Exceptional leadership and communication skills, with the ability to influence at all levels, including executive stakeholders.


• Strong strategic thinking and decision-making capabilities with a focus on business impact and outcomes.


• Demonstrated success in building and leading high-performing, geographically distributed teams.


• Ability to manage complex priorities, ambiguity, and large-scale organizational challenges.


• Strong collaboration skills with the ability to align cross-functional teams toward common goals.


• High sense of ownership, accountability, and commitment to delivery excellence.

Nice to Have

• Experience in SaaS or enterprise product organizations at scale.


• Exposure to AI/ML platforms and integrating AI capabilities into products.


• Experience leading platform modernization, cloud transformation, or large-scale migrations.


• Familiarity with talent management, HR tech, or learning management systems.

Our Culture

Spark Greatness. Shatter Boundaries. Share Success. Are you ready? Because here, right now – is where the future of work is happening. Where curious disruptors and change innovators like you are helping communities and customers enable everyone – anywhere – to learn, grow and advance. To be better tomorrow than they are today.

Who We Are

Cornerstone powers the potential of organizations and their people to thrive in a changing world. Cornerstone Galaxy, the complete AI-powered workforce agility platform, meets organizations where they are. With Galaxy, organizations can identify skills gaps and development opportunities, retain and engage top talent, and provide multimodal learning experiences to meet the diverse needs of the modern workforce. More than 7,000 organizations and 100 million+ users in 180+ countries and in nearly 50 languages use Cornerstone Galaxy to build high-performing, future-ready organizations and people today.