Director of Engineering - AI Solutions

NetApp, Inc.; Morrisville (NC); Hybrid; USD 228,000 - 339,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Life Insurance

Retirement or Pension Plans

Paid Time Off

various Leave options

Performance-Based Incentives

employee stock purchase plan

restricted stocks (RSU’s)

Job summary

NetApp, Inc. is seeking a Director of Engineering – AI Solutions for Developer Productivity to lead AI-driven tools that accelerate coding, testing, and deployment. You will shape an internal AI ecosystem, aligning platform tooling with engineering velocity across global teams.

You will mentor ML/AI engineers, collaborate with Platform and DevEx teams, and establish governance and security standards to enable widespread adoption of AI-enabled development practices.

Qualifications

• 3+ years integrating Generative AI, code-trained LLMs, or agentic frameworks into developer workflows.
• 8+ years of core software engineering experience in DevEx, IDP, or CI/CD infra.
• Deep familiarity with IDEs, AI code assist, and security scanning tools.
• Strong understanding of vector search and LLM fine-tuning for code.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the vision for AI-infused internal developer tools and CI/CD diagnostics.
• Lead, recruit, and mentor ML/AI engineers to build productivity solutions.
• Partner with Infrastructure, DevEng, and Security to integrate AI tools into IDEs and pipelines.
• Oversee code indexing, vector databases, and RAG pipelines feeding internal LLMs.
• Establish governance, security guardrails, and program adoption across engineering.

Skills

AI & LLM Integration

Software & Platform Foundations

Developer Ecosystems

System Architecture

Tools

LangChain

AutoGen

LiteLLM

Kong

TrueFoundry

Job description

Executive Summary

We are looking for an innovative Director of Engineering – AI Solutions for Developer Productivity to transform how our software engineers build, test, and deploy code. In this high-impact role, you will lead the strategy and execution of AI-driven platform tools, intelligent coding assistants, automated code review agents, and automated pipeline workflows. Your goal is to build an internal AI ecosystem that removes developer friction, eliminates repetitive tasks, and measurably boosts engineering velocity across our global technology team.

Key Responsibilities

AI Developer Tooling Strategy

• Internal Platform Roadmap: Define and drive the vision for AI-infused internal developer tools, including LLM code-generation assistants, intelligent CI/CD diagnostic agents, automated code migration tooling, and dynamic documentation systems.
• Productivity Metrics (Core 4, DORA & SPACE): Use established Developer Experience KPIs to introduce AI initiatives/solutions that increase overall engineering output.

Team Leadership & Platform Delivery

• Engineering Management: Lead, recruit, and mentor a team of Machine Learning/AI Engineers (builders, scalers and maintainers) to work closely with the Platform Engineers, and DevEx Engineers to develop AI based productivity solution.
• Ecosystem Integration: Partner with Infrastructure, DevEng, and Security teams to seamlessly integrate AI tools into developer IDEs, version control systems, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Prompt & Context Architecture: Oversee the architecture of code indexing, vector databases, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines that feed repository context securely into internal LLMs.

Governance, Security & Adoption

• Code Privacy & Security: Work closely with Security and Compliance to implement AI based solution that enforce guardrails around IP protection, secret scanning, license compliance, and secure code generation.
• Change Management & Enablement: Champion the adoption of AI tools across engineering teams; establish internal training programs, hackathons, and best practices to help every engineer become an AI-augmented developer.

Qualifications and Skills

Technical Expertise

• AI & LLM Integration: 3+ years integrating Generative AI, code-trained LLMs, or agentic frameworks such as LangChain, AutoGen, LiteLLM, Kong, TrueFoundry or custom RAG pipelines into practical developer workflows.
• Software & Platform Foundations: 8+ years of core software engineering experience, with a background in Developer Experience (DevEx), Internal Developer Platforms (IDP), or CI/CD infrastructure.
• Developer Ecosystems: Deep familiarity with modern IDEs, AI Code Assist, quality and security AI code scanning tools, AI solutions for test harness, code review, etc.
• System Architecture: Solid understanding of vector search engines, embedding models for code representation, and LLM fine-tuning techniques.

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Leadership Track Record: 5+ years managing engineering teams at the Engineering Manager, Senior Manager, or Director level, with a strong emphasis on platform engineering or internal tooling.
• Developer Empathy: Passion for developer productivity, developer satisfaction, and eliminating operational friction.
• Data-Driven Approach: Experience using metrics to measure productivity gains and cost efficiency without compromising code quality or developer well-being.

Compensation:
The target salary range for this position is 227,800 - 338,800 USD. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate's location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards, reflecting a variety of factors, and include a comprehensive benefits package. This may cover Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement or Pension Plans, Paid Time Off, various Leave options, Performance-Based Incentives, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU’s), with all offerings subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. Benefits may vary by country and region, and further details will be provided as part of the recruitment process.

At NetApp, we embrace a hybrid working environment designed to strengthen connection, collaboration, and culture for all employees. This means that most roles will have some level of in-office and/or in-person expectations, which will be shared during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

NetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification.

Why You'll Thrive at NetApp

At NetApp, you won't wait for the perfect moment—you'll make it. The early planning, the extra thought, the bold idea that turns good into great: That's how our people operate and how we continue to push the boundaries of data infrastructure.

NetApp is the trusted partner for organizations transforming data into opportunity. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure, we empower customers to run everything from traditional workloads to enterprise AI with unmatched performance, resilience, and security.

Our culture

We celebrate mold breakers, bold thinkers, and problem solvers. We reward initiative, impact, and ownership. We provide flexibility so you can balance professional ambition with your personal life. Here, differences are not just welcomed—they drive everything we do.

If you're ready to innovate, rise to the challenge, and own every moment - make your next move your best one.

AI Disclosure

For select roles, some stages of our hiring process may use artificial intelligence tools to help evaluate applications and candidate selection. These tools support—rather than replace—human decision-making.