Head of AI Applications & Delivery

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AJG); Rolling Meadows, Northern (IL, KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Gallagher is seeking an AI Applications Development Manager to lead a team building AI systems on Azure. You will set priorities, coach engineers, and ensure reliable, production-grade software delivery while aligning with business goals and governance policies.

You will collaborate with stakeholders across Gallagher to translate priorities into actionable delivery plans, manage roadmaps, and drive successful deployments in a controlled, scalable environment.

Qualifications

• 7-10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including at least 2 years working on AI/GenAI or ML-integrated systems (production RAG pipelines, agents, or LLM-powered applications).

Responsibilities

• Lead and Develop the AI Development Team: Manage the day-to-day work of a team of AI Developers building AI systems — assigning work, coaching engineers of varying experience levels, and owning performance management for the team.
• Own Business Stakeholder Relationships: Develop and maintain relationships with business stakeholders across Gallagher to understand their priorities, then translate those priorities into a concrete plan for the team.
• Plan and Deliver AI Initiatives: Produce detailed project schedules and resource plans with project managers and manage the team's roadmap so that AI initiatives ship on time and within scope.
• Direct Delivery Within the Team's Technical Standards: Ensure the team's day-to-day build work follows the architecture, patterns, and engineering standards set by the Senior AI Engineering Lead, coordinating integration across components and modules and holding the team to the team's quality bar.
• Own Production Support for AI Applications: Be accountable for the reliability and support of every AI application and agent already in production – new features, upgrades, incident responses.
• Manage Releases and Deployments: Oversee the release and deployment process for the team's AI solutions through the team's Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines, working with engineering to keep deployments predictable and low-risk.
• Troubleshoot and Escalate Complex Issues: Operationally troubleshoot complex production issues alongside the team, and know when to pull in the Senior AI Engineering Lead or architects for issues that require a deeper technical fix.
• Ensure Governance, Compliance, and Business Continuity: Hold the team accountable to AJ Gallagher's IT policy and responsible AI requirements - Entra ID/RBAC, audit logging, human-in-the-loop checkpoints - and develop and maintain documented standards of built systems.
• Communicate Up and Across: Give the Director of AI Technology an accurate, current picture of delivery status and risk, and translate technical trade-offs into terms business stakeholders and executives can act on.

Job description

Gallagher is seeking an AI Applications Development Manager to lead a team building AI systems on Azure. You will set priorities, coach engineers, and ensure reliable, production-grade software delivery while aligning with business goals and governance policies.

You will collaborate with stakeholders across Gallagher to translate priorities into actionable delivery plans, manage roadmaps, and drive successful deployments in a controlled, scalable environment.