Associate Director, AI-Driven Engineering & Innovation Delivery

Kirkland & Ellis; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 203,000 - 253,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare benefits

Paid time off

Retirement plan

Learning & development opportunities

Job summary

Kirkland & Ellis, a leading global law firm, seeks an Associate Director of Application Engineering, Practice Innovation Delivery, in Chicago. You will guide platforms, APIs, integrations, and AI-enabled solutions powering practice delivery across the firm.

You’ll partner with Innovation Product & Engineering, Legal Practice Technology, and Security teams to drive scalable, governance-first engineering. This leadership role emphasizes modern platforms, automation, and AI-assisted workflows, with

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Information Technology.
• 8+ years of experience in application integrations, platform onboarding, administration, and operations across SaaS, on-premises, and hybrid environments.
• Proven track record of operational excellence and technology leadership.
• Strong knowledge of Azure and enterprise technology platforms.
• Deep understanding of APIs, API gateways, SSO, workflow automation, platform integrations, and enterprise connectivity patterns.
• Experience with AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD, and DevSecOps methodologies.

Responsibilities

• Oversee day-to-day operation, performance, and support of innovation applications and platforms, ensuring reliability and scalability.
• Lead, coach, and prioritise a team of engineers responsible for platform delivery, production support, integrations, and automation.
• Establish engineering best practices for API-led integration, platform governance, security, observability, and service reusability.
• Shape the roadmap for AI-assisted engineering, agentic workflows, and MCP enablement with strong governance and security.
• Establish and manage cloud integration environments and supporting infrastructure for development and production workloads.
• Collaborate with multiple teams to align engineering priorities with business objectives.
• Define approved services and security boundaries for API and AI agent consumption.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Communication

Strategic thinking

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Information Technology

Tools

Azure

AWS

Kubernetes

Docker

CI/CD

DevSecOps

Job description

Kirkland & Ellis, a leading global law firm, seeks an Associate Director of Application Engineering, Practice Innovation Delivery, in Chicago. You will guide platforms, APIs, integrations, and AI-enabled solutions powering practice delivery across the firm.

You’ll partner with Innovation Product & Engineering, Legal Practice Technology, and Security teams to drive scalable, governance-first engineering. This leadership role emphasizes modern platforms, automation, and AI-assisted workflows, with