Director, AI Vendor Integrations & Platform Solutions

Sidley Austin LLP; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 200,000 - 264,000; Full time

Job summary

Sidley Austin LLP is seeking a technical AI Vendor Integrations Associate Director to lead the Firm's relationships with AI and technology vendors and act as a hands-on technical lead for integrating solutions across our AI ecosystem.

This role bridges product management and solutions engineering, translating business and technical requirements into integration strategies and delivering secure, scalable deployments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• A minimum of 10 years in technical product management, solutions engineering, integration engineering, or a similar hybrid technical/product role.
• Hands-on experience building and maintaining API-based integrations (REST, OAuth, webhooks, SSO/SAML/SCIM).
• Working fluency across multiple LLM providers and platforms — not limited to a single vendor — including model capabilities, pricing/token economics, and deployment options (API, cloud marketplaces, private hosting).
• Demonstrated success managing external vendor relationships, including negotiations, escalations, and joint delivery.
• Strong communication skills; able to translate between engineers, vendors, and non-technical senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary liaison between the firm and its AI/technology vendors, owning day-to-day relationships, escalations, roadmap discussions, and contract/SLA follow-through.
• Design, build, and maintain integrations between vendor platforms and firm systems — including APIs, SDKs, webhooks, SSO/identity, and emerging standards such as Model Context Protocol (MCP) — across multiple AI providers and legal/enterprise tools.
• Run structured evaluations and proofs of concept for new AI tools and models; benchmark capabilities, cost, and fit against firm use cases and make build/buy/integrate recommendations.
• Partner with information security, risk, and general counsel teams to shepherd vendors through security review, data protection, and compliance requirements appropriate to a legal environment.
• Translate stakeholder needs into technical requirements, integration specs, and prioritized backlogs; manage delivery timelines across vendors and internal IT.
• Monitor integration health, usage, and performance; establish observability and escalation paths so issues are caught and resolved before they impact users.
• Track the AI vendor landscape and advise leadership on emerging platforms, model releases, and consolidation opportunities across the stack.

Skills

Vendor management

API integrations

LLM platforms

Cross-functional communication

Problem solving

Project management

Security awareness

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

REST APIs

OAuth

SSO/SAML/SCIM

iManage

NetDocuments

Harvey

CoCounsel

Relativity aiR

MCP-based tools

Job description

Sidley Austin LLP is seeking a technical AI Vendor Integrations Associate Director to lead the Firm's relationships with AI and technology vendors and act as a hands-on technical lead for integrating solutions across our AI ecosystem.

This role bridges product management and solutions engineering, translating business and technical requirements into integration strategies and delivering secure, scalable deployments.