AI Platform Delivery Director

MassMutual; Springfield (MA); On-site; USD 148,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

MassMutual's AI Platform Engineering team seeks an impact-driven leader to own people leadership, hiring, and day-to-day execution of the AI Platform team, partnering with technical leadership to translate roadmap priorities into delivery while building a high-trust engineering culture.

This role leads at the center of how MassMutual builds and operates the platform powering its AI initiatives, interfacing with AI engineering, product, and cloud teams.

Qualifications

• 3+ years as a people manager of software, platform, or infrastructure engineers, plus 5+ years of software engineering experience.
• Experience hiring, coaching, and retaining engineers under Ambiguous, fast-moving priorities.
• Working knowledge of cloud-native architecture (Kubernetes, managed cloud services, networking, multi-tenancy on AWS/GCP/Azure).
• Proven ability to lead multi-month platform initiatives from whiteboard to production.
• Exposure to AI/ML infrastructure (model serving, inference pipelines).
• Experience setting and upholding engineering standards across a team.
• Strong communication skills bridging technical depth and business priorities.

Responsibilities

• Own the people leadership of the AI Platform team, including hiring, onboarding, and career development.
• Drive execution against the AI platform roadmap with sprint milestones and delivery accountability.
• Engage in architecture discussions and design reviews for critical infrastructure.
• Champion engineering excellence: code quality, on-call practices, and operational maturity.
• Provide clear reporting on progress, risks, and resourcing to senior stakeholders.
• Foster wellbeing and growth by removing blockers and maintaining a high-trust culture.

Skills

People leadership

Hiring and coaching

Cloud-native architecture

AI/ML infrastructure

Strong communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/engineering or similar

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

Kubernetes

Job description

The Opportunity

MassMutual's AI Platform Engineering team is seeking an impact-driven Engineering professional to lead and grow the team that builds the infrastructure powering AI development across the company. You will own the people leadership, hiring, and day-to-day execution of the AI Platform team, partnering closely with technical leadership to translate roadmap priorities into delivery while building a high-performing, high-trust engineering culture.

The Team

This is a unique opportunity to lead a team at the center of how MassMutual builds and operates the platform powering its AI initiatives. The team operates at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, AI/ML systems, and developer experience - delivering foundational capabilities that shape how the entire organization builds and deploys AI. As the engineering director, you will partner closely with the AI engineering, product, and cloud engineering teams across the enterprise, and you will invest in your team's growth through a culture of peer learning, candid feedback, and shared technical standards. This team is defined by a shared commitment to engineering excellence, clear documentation, and the kind of people leadership that helps engineers do their best work.

The Impact

• Own the people leadership of the AI Platform development team - hiring, onboarding, performance management, and career development, for a team of AI platform engineers.
• Drive execution against the AI platform roadmap - partner with key stakeholders to break strategic priorities into achievable sprints and milestones and hold the team accountable to delivery.
• Stay technical enough to lead - participate in architecture discussions and design reviews for systems like agent runtime infrastructure, tool/plugin registries, memory and context management layers, and agent observability pipelines, even when you're not writing production code day to day.
• Champion engineering excellence - set and uphold standards for code quality, reliability, on-call practices, and operational maturity across the platform.
• Manage up and out - provide clear, honest reporting on team progress, risks, and resourcing needs, and communicate technical trade-offs to senior stakeholders.
• Be the primary advocate for your team's wellbeing and growth - removing blockers, building a high-trust culture, and raising the team's technical craft through design reviews and documentation habits.

The Minimum Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience as a people manager of software, platform, or infrastructure engineers, plus 5+ years of overall software engineering experience.
• Demonstrated track record of hiring, coaching, and retaining strong engineers, with experience leading teams through ambiguous, fast-moving priorities.
• Working knowledge of cloud-native architecture - Kubernetes, managed cloud services, networking, and multi-tenancy patterns across AWS, GCP, or Azure, sufficient to engage credibly in technical discussions.
• Proven ability to lead a team through complex, multi-month platform initiatives - driven from whiteboard to production, managing ambiguity and risk throughout.
• Exposure to AI/ML infrastructure - model serving, inference pipelines, agentic solution or LLM integration patterns.
• Experience setting and upholding engineering standards (code quality, on-call practices, operational excellence) across a team.
• Strong communication skills - able to translate between technical depth and business priorities for different audiences, with clear written documentation habits.
• Bachelors degree in a computer science, engineering or similar discipline.
• Must be able to work in the US without sponsorship now or in the future.

The Ideal Qualifications

• Experience leading a team that built an internal developer platform (IDP) from scratch, with a product mindset that obsesses over internal developer experience.
• Familiarity with AI safety, model evaluation, and governance frameworks.
• Ability to lead with both people and technical credibility - influencing design decisions, driving alignment, and raising quality bar across the team.
• Open-source contributions to platform or ML infrastructure tooling.
• Comfort with ambiguity - energized by undefined problem spaces, with a habit of building clarity and shared context where there isn’t any.
• Advanced educational degree preferred.

What to Expect as Part of MassMutual and the Team

• Regular meetings with the AI Platform Engineering team
• Focused one-on-one meetings with your manager
• Networking opportunities including access to Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, African American, women, LGBTQIA+, veteran and disability-focused Business Resource Groups
• Access to learning content on Degreed and other informational platforms
• Your ethics and integrity will be valued by a company with a strong and stable ethical business with industry leading pay and benefits

#LI-MC1

Salary Range:

$148,300-$194,600

At MassMutual, we focus on ensuring fair equitable pay, by providing competitive salaries, along with incentive and bonus opportunities for all employees. Your total compensation package includes either a bonus target or in a sales-focused role a Variable Incentive Compensation component.

Why Join Us.

We've been around since 1851. During our history, we've learned a few things about making sure our customers are our top priority. In order to meet and exceed their expectations, we must have the best people providing the best thinking, products and services. To accomplish this, we celebrate an inclusive, vibrant and diverse culture that encourages growth, openness and opportunities for everyone. A career with MassMutual means you will be part of a strong, stable and ethical business with industry leading pay and benefits. And your voice will always be heard.

We help people secure their future and protect the ones they love. As a company owned by our policyowners, we are defined by mutuality and our vision to put customers first. Its more than our company structure - its our way of life. We are a company of people protecting people. Our company exists because people are willing to share risk and resources, and rely on each other when it counts. At MassMutual, we Live Mutual.

MassMutual is an equal employment opportunity employer. We welcome all persons to apply.