Director of Engineering, Claris AI Services

Socket.dev; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 260,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

Claris, an Apple subsidiary, seeks a Director of Engineering for Claris AI Services to own end-to-end product development of a new AI-native cloud service. You will lead the engineering team across the AI answer pipeline, model orchestration, data foundation, web app, APIs and gateway, partnering with product, program management, design, QA, and security to deliver regular, gated releases.

This leadership role requires a strong track record in shipping cloud SaaS, guiding distributed teams, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in CS/engineering.
• 8+ years managing software engineering teams.
• 12+ years software engineering experience, cloud SaaS.
• Proven track record shipping customer-facing SaaS products on a regular cadence.
• Strong understanding of GenAI architecture and LLM patterns.
• Experience owning production services, reliability and observability.
• Experience leading cross-team initiatives.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills.

Skills

Leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Cloud SaaS development

GenAI architecture

LLM patterns

Production services

Reliability

Observability

Incident response

Stakeholder communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience

Tools

Model Context Protocol

Job description

Join Claris, an Apple subsidiary, as Director of Engineering for Claris AI Services. We are seeking an experienced engineering leader to own product development for a new AI-native cloud service This role leads the engineering team building the service end to end: the AI answer pipeline and model orchestration, real-time access to external systems of record, the data foundation, the web application, and the APIs and gateway that tie them together. The service is built on Claris platform technology and runs in Apple's cloud, serving enterprise and education customers.

Description

You will partner daily with product management, program management, design, QA, and security, and you will own the delivery cadence: a release roughly every sprint, gated by feature flags, security review, and AI privacy review. Your leadership will determine how fast an early-stage product becomes a durable, scalable business.Further detail on the product, roadmap, and team will be shared during the interview process.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 8+ years managing software engineering teams, with a demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing teams
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including cloud-based SaaS product development
• Proven track record shipping customer-facing SaaS products on a regular release cadence, with measurable improvement in quality and delivery predictability
• Strong understanding of GenAI architecture, including LLM application patterns, retrieval, tool and function calling, agent orchestration, and evaluation of model output quality
• Experience owning production services, including reliability, observability, incident response, and multi-tenant data isolation
• Proven experience leading cross-team initiatives from planning through execution in partnership with product and program management
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with stakeholders at all levels
• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with agentic architectures and standardized tool and data interfaces such as the Model Context Protocol
• Experience leading globally distributed team
• Experience taking an early-stage product from initial traction to scale, including the shift from feature velocity to durability and cost efficiency
• Solid analytical, problem-solving, consultation, and organizational skills