Principal AI Delivery Lead

EBSCO; United States; Hybrid; USD 197,000 - 282,000; Full time

Job summary

EBSCO Information Services is building a forward-deployed AI delivery capability within its Data & AI organization. You will lead the Forward-Deployed Engineering team, defining the delivery roadmap and building reusable patterns that accelerate enterprise AI delivery.

You will partner with sponsors across product, security, customer service, and operations to ship AI that improves speed, quality, and cost, leaving behind guardrails and scalable capabilities for the rest of the company.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software, product, or AI delivery.
• 3+ years leading teams that shipped AI-powered production software.
• Hands-on fluency with agentic AI including LLM orchestration and prompt engineering.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Forward-Deployed Engineering pod: outcomes, roadmap, team growth and performance.
• Run the operating model: value/feasibility/data-risk scoring; time-boxed engagements; clean hand-offs.
• Set technical direction for production agentic systems and production-grade AI workflows.
• Stand up delivery foundations: evaluation harness, guardrails, observability, reusable patterns.
• Own cost-to-serve: model selection, LLM migration, prompt caching, economics.

Skills

Software leadership

AI delivery leadership

Production AI/ML

Cross-functional comms

Executive stakeholder mgmt

Hands-on leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/related field

Tools

AWS

LLM orchestration

RAG

Job description

EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) delivers a fully optimized research experience, seamlessly integrated with a powerful discovery platform to support the information needs and maximize the research experience of our end-users. Headquartered in Ipswich, MA, EBSCO employs more than 2,700 people worldwide, with most embracing hybrid or remote work models. As an AI-enabled service leader, we thrive on innovation, forward-thinking strategies, and the dedication of our exceptional team. At EBSCO, we’re driven to inspire, empower and support research. Our mission is to transform lives by providing reliable and relevant information — when, where and how people need it. We’re seeking dynamic, creative individuals whose diverse perspectives will help us achieve this global, inclusive mission. Join us to help make an impact.

Your Opportunity

EBSCO is standing up a forward-deployed AI delivery capability inside its Data&AI organization-a smallpodstructurethat turnsreal businessproblems into production AI systems and hands them back to the teams that own them. We are hiring aDelivery Leadto lead it.

This is a player-coach role for someone who can set technical direction for agentic AI systems, run a disciplined intake → build → hand-off delivery model, and buildrepeatableinternalcapabilities. You will lead a team ofAI Engineersand partner with sponsors across Product, Security, Customer Service, and Operations to ship AIthat measurablymovesspeed, quality, and cost. Just as important, you will leave behind reusable patterns, evaluations, and guardrails that let the rest of EBSCO move faster. You willjoin atthe ground floor of a funded, executive-sponsoredteamwith a live backlog waiting on day one!

What You'll Do

• Lead the Forward-Deployed Engineering pod: Own the outcomes, the delivery roadmap, and the growth and performance of the team

• Run the operating model:Score inbound demand on value / feasibility / data-risk, time-box engagements, and enforce a clean hand-off so the receiving team can own,operate, and extend what you build

• Set technical direction for production agentic systems: Orchestration and long-running workflows, RAG / enterprise search, human-in-the-loop, governed tool and data access (e.g., MCP), and bring-your-own-model patterns

• Stand up the delivery foundations:An evaluation harness, responsible-AI guardrails, LLM observability, and a reusable pattern catalog that compounds across engagements

• Own cost-to-serve:Model selection, small-language-model migration, prompt caching, and token economics

• Partner with named business sponsorsto convert their use cases into shipped, adopted systems

• Work alongside strategic delivery vendorsas accelerants while protecting EBSCO IP ownership

• Instrument and report impacton a Speed / Quality / Cost / Learning scorecardand communicate back to SLT

• Scale the capability:Mature the pod and seed the embedded champion (“spoke”) network so applied-AI delivery scales without the central team becoming the bottleneck

Your Team

You will lead the Forward-Deployed Engineering (FDE) team,the delivery engine of EBSCO’s AI operating model, within the Data& AIOrganization(DAIO), reporting to the VP, Head of AI.You willworkthe enterprise’s highest-value applied-AI and automation use cases, backed by a standing backlog, direct executive sponsorship, and a clear mandate to define how AI delivery gets done at EBSCO. This is a build-it role, with the autonomy that comes with it.

About You

• 10+ years in software, product, or AI delivery, including 3+ years leading teams that shippedAI-poweredproduction software

• Demonstrated ownership of production AI/ML or generative-AI systems end-to-end from solution design through production rollout and adoption notjustprototypes or strategy decks

• Hands-on fluency with modern agentic AIsuch as LLMorchestration, RAG / vector search, human-in-the-loop design, prompt engineering, and agent evaluation

• Proventrack recordpartnering with delivery and implementation teams to take enterprise use cases into production and hand them off cleanly

• Strong grounding in responsible AI, evaluation frameworks, and guardrails. Abilityto define “done” for a production agent

• Cloud-native (AWSpreferred); comfortable setting architecture direction and earning the trust of engineers

• Player-coachmindset:Lead, manage, and represent the team to executives;Hands-on enough to be credible with a small, elite team

• Excellent cross-functional communication. Technical and business fluencytranslating between executive sponsors, business stakeholders, and engineers

What Sets You Apart

• Experience commercializing or productizing AI at scale:Hyperscalermarketplace launches, ARR ownership, or platform productization

• Cost-optimization depth:Small language models, fine-tuning, prompt caching, token-economics modeling

• Background in information services, publishing, or othercontent-richenterprises

• Experience standing up a new team or capability fromground-up

• Relevant certifications (cloud ML/AI engineering,SAFe, PMP)

Pay Range

USD $197,300.00 - USD $281,860.00 /Yr.