Director, Developer AI

New Relic; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 224,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading observability platform provider is seeking a Director of Developer AI to transform the software development lifecycle using AI technologies. This strategic role requires extensive experience in AI/ML, strong coding skills, and a vision for integrating generative AI into platforms, while also enhancing developer experience and security across development environments. A competitive compensation package and diverse benefits are offered.

Benefits

Healthcare benefits

401(k) plan

Paid holidays

Volunteer time-off

Mental health benefits

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering, 5+ in technical leadership.
• Experience with AI/ML and GenAI systems.
• Strong understanding of generative models and AI libraries.

Responsibilities

• Architect an AI-powered software development lifecycle.
• Build developer tools leveraging Generative AI.
• Apply AI/ML to enhance security across code.

Skills

AI/ML system development

Generative AI knowledge

Strong coding skills in Python, Java or C#

Strategic vision for AI

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, AI/ML

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Kubernetes

Azure ML

OpenAI

Job description

Overview

We are a global team of innovators and pioneers dedicated to shaping the future of observability. At New Relic, we build an intelligent platform that empowers companies to thrive in an AI-first world by giving them unparalleled insight into their complex systems. As we continue to expand our global footprint, we're looking for passionate people to join our mission. If you're ready to help the world's best companies optimize their digital applications, we invite you to explore a career with us!

Your Opportunity

We are looking for a Director of Developer AI to build an engineering ecosystem using cutting-edge AI/ML and Generative AI technologies. This pivotal role will modernize and design the next-gen Agentic Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), creating scalable platforms with Agentic AI that integrate intelligence, automation, and security at every phase of software delivery. You will drive the future of developer productivity, embedding AI-native solutions to reduce toil, increasing engineering velocity, and provide the best developer experience in engineering. Additionally, you will apply AI/ML to identify, prioritize, and address security vulnerabilities across codebases, infrastructure, and configurations, ensuring robust and secure solutions.

What you\'ll do

• AI-Native SDLC Leadership: Architect a forward-looking, AI-powered and Agentic SDLC aiming to increase developer velocity 10x. Drive continuous improvement through self-healing pipelines, feedback loops powered by telemetry, behavioral signals, and adaptive agents.
• RAG & GenAI Systems for Developers: Build intelligent, low-latency developer tools leveraging Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines and Agentic AI integrations. Operationalize and integrate semantic search, document chunking, vector indexing (e.g., Pinecone, FAISS, Weaviate), and metadata enrichment to deliver real-time, context-aware knowledge to engineers. Develop and integrate GenAI copilots into IDEs, CLIs, and CI/CD tools for smart code suggestions, error resolution, test generation, and documentation assistance. Use orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex) to manage complex multi-turn interactions and prompt workflows.
• Developer Experience (DevEx): Design frictionless, AI-augmented workflows across development environments to boost flow state and reduce overhead. Scale internal developer portals with AI-powered onboarding, AI-powered code reviews, documentation retrieval, and contextual guidance.
• AI-Driven Security: Apply LLMs and ML models to detect and fix vulnerabilities across code, configuration, and third-party dependencies. Automate rotation of secrets, insecure patterns, privilege escalation vectors, and misconfigurations using AI-powered SAST/DAST.
• Platform Engineering and Scale: Lead the design and operation of secure, multi-tenant, AI-native developer platforms. Utilize Kubernetes, Argo, Temporal, and Agents to orchestrate scalable, resilient workflows. Ensure enterprise-grade SLAs for developer tooling, LLM inference systems, and evaluation infrastructure. Implement cost-efficient auto-scaling, policy enforcement, and observability across environments.
• ML Ops & Evaluation: Manage model lifecycles using Vertex AI, SageMaker, Azure ML, and Bedrock. Deploy model telemetry, evaluation frameworks, and prompt versioning using tools like Weights & Biases, PromptLayer, and TruLens.
• Hands-On Technical Leadership: Ability to contribute to system design and write production-grade code and POCs in Python, Go, or Java. Rapidly experiment with LLMs (LLAMA, GPT-4, Claude, Gemini) and emerging GenAI and retrieval technologies (e.g., MCP).
• Impact and Metrics: Define KPIs for AI-native tools, measuring productivity lift, adoption, model quality (precision/recall), latency, and risk reduction. Design a robust Developer Productivity Dashboard for data-driven decision making.

This role requires

• Bachelor or Master\'s in Computer Science, Engineering, AI/ML, or a related field.
• 10+ years in software engineering, including 5+ in senior technical leadership roles. 3+ years of direct experience with AI/ML and GenAI system development.
• Strong strategic vision for the use of generative AI within the business context, identifying areas where it can provide competitive advantages or improve operational efficiencies.
• Deep knowledge of generative models, including Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), and Large Language Models (LLMs) like OpenAI\'s GPT series, BERT, and Transformer architectures, understanding their architecture, training methods, and applications.
• Strong coding skills in Python, Java, or C#, with a solid grasp of AI-focused libraries such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Hugging Face Transformers, and other frameworks that support generative AI development.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms that offer specific support for deploying and scaling generative models, such as Google\'s Vertex AI, Azure\'s AI tools, and AWS\'s Machine Learning services.
• Experience in applying generative techniques in practical applications such as content creation, data augmentation, simulation, and anomaly detection.
• Proven experience with enterprise-scale technical delivery experience with AI Services including OpenAI, Schematic Kernel, AWS Bedrock, Machine Learning (or equivalent), Generative AI, LLM customization, NLP, Search, MLOps, Open-source AI frameworks, AI Infrastructure, architecture design.
• Ability to align AI/ML initiatives with broader business goals and outcomes, understanding how AI can drive value and competitive advantage.
• Proven years\' experience creating AI Proof of Concepts and Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) and supporting multiple business domains.
• Core Technical Competencies:
  • Languages: Python, Go, TypeScript, Java
  • GenAI Platforms: OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, LLaMA, Hugging Face
  • RAG Tools: LangChain, Haystack, Pinecone, FAISS, Weaviate, Qdrant
  • MLOps & Cloud ML: Bedrock, Vertex AI, SageMaker, Azure ML, MLflow, Kubeflow
  • ML Frameworks: PyTorch, TensorFlow
  • Security Tooling: GitHub CodeQL, Trivy, Snyk, SAST/DAST
  • Observability & Eval: Prometheus, Grafana, New Relic, PromptLayer, TruLens
  • DevOps & Platform: Kubernetes, Terraform, ArgoCD, Temporal, Jenkins, GitOps

Bonus points if you have this

• Strong influencing and communication skills with ability to author technical white papers, write blogs and do deep dive demos.
• Understanding of Responsible AI (hallucination control, bias mitigation, explainability).
• Familiarity with AI accelerator architectures that enhance the performance of advanced algorithms.
• Proven experience with recommender systems and ranking models that drive personalized user experiences.
• Demonstrated skills in guiding and developing technical teams towards achieving complex project goals

Other information

• Please note that visa sponsorship is available for this position.
• Qualified applicants may inquire about visa sponsorship, but the company does not support or sponsor O-1, F-1, or J-1 visas, or candidates who require commencement of an H-1B cap case petition for future work authorization. This position is to be filled as soon as possible.

Compensation and benefits

The pay range below represents a reasonable estimate of the salary for the listed position. This role is eligible for a corporate bonus plan. Pay within this range varies by work location and may also depend on job-related factors such as an applicant\'s skills, qualifications, and experience.

New Relic provides a variety of benefits for this role, including healthcare, dental, vision, parental leave and planning, and mental health benefits, a 401(k) plan and match, flex time-off, 11 paid holidays, volunteer time-off, and other competitive benefits designed to improve the lives of our employees.

Estimated Base Pay Range

$224,000—$280,000 USD

We are committed to fostering a diverse, welcoming and inclusive environment and provide accommodations as needed during the application process.

Our hiring process

In compliance with applicable law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work and to complete employment eligibility verification. Note: Our stewardship of the data of thousands of customers means that a criminal background check is required to join New Relic. We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records based on individual circumstances and in accordance with applicable law including, but not limited to, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

New Relic examples privacy notice: Review our Applicant Privacy Notice at https://newrelic.com/termsandconditions/applicant-privacy-policy