Sr. Director, AI Infrastructure

Coupang; Seattle, Mountain View (WA, CA); On-site; USD 184,000 - 376,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision/Life insurance

Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) & Health Savings Account (HSA)

401K Plan with Company Match

Paid Time Off (PTO)

Paid Parental leave

Free Electric Car Charging Station

Job summary

Coupang is seeking a Sr. Director of Back-end Engineering focused on AI Infrastructure Orchestration to drive the long-term vision and roadmap. This role involves leading a high-performing engineering team while ensuring the reliability and security of AI infrastructure.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in software engineering, leading technical teams, and working with large-scale distributed systems and cloud-native architectures. This position offers competitive pay and comprehensive benefits.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering or platform operations.
• 5+ years of experience leading and managing technical teams.
• Deep hands-on experience with large-scale distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the long-term vision for AI infrastructure.
• Lead and mentor a high-performing engineering team.
• Ensure reliability, security, and compliance of AI infrastructure.

Skills

Expert-level knowledge of containerization and orchestration

Strong background in DevOps and MLOps principles

Proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Python, Go)

Exceptional strategic planning

Outstanding verbal and written communication

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

ML frameworks

Job description

Sr. Director Back-end Engineering – AI Infrastructure Orchestration

Role Overview

• Define and execute the long‑term vision and roadmap for the company’s AI infrastructure orchestration layer, aligning it with overall business and AI Services goals.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a high‑performing engineering and operations team focused on AI infrastructure and platform engineering.
• Manage budget and resource allocation for AI infrastructure deliverables.
• Act as a key liaison between AI Infra and other services owners, core engineering, Cloud infrastructure, and executive leadership.

AI Infra Development and Operations

• Oversee the design, implementation, and maintenance of the core orchestration platforms for large‑scale AI model training (e.g., distributed training, hyperparameter tuning) and deployment (e.g., containerization, serverless functions, edge deployment).
• Ensure reliability, security, and compliance of the AI infrastructure, meeting strict standards for data governance and model integrity.
• Establish Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the AI platform services and lead efforts for continuous optimization and performance tuning.

Success Metrics

A successful Senior Director - AI Infrastructure Orchestration will be measured by:

• The time‑to‑market for AI infrastructure build, scale and operate.
• The resource utilization rate and cost efficiency of the AI compute infrastructure.
• The reliability and uptime of the core AI platform services.
• The talent retention and development within the AI Infrastructure team.

Technology and Architecture

• Select, evaluate, and integrate the core technologies required for the AI stack (e.g., Kubernetes, Kubeflow, Ray, ML frameworks, GPU/accelerator management, distributed file systems).
• Champion infrastructure‑as‑code (IaC) principles to manage and provision AI resources consistently and at scale.

Basic Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Experience: 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, infrastructure, or platform operations.
• 5+ years of experience leading and managing technical teams, ideally in a Director or Sr. Director level.
• Deep, hands‑on experience designing and operating large‑scale distributed systems and cloud‑native architectures.
• Proven experience specifically with AI infrastructure orchestration (e.g., using Kubernetes, Kubeflow, or similar MLOps tools) and managing accelerated compute resources (GPUs, TPUs, etc.).
• 15+ years of Cloud backend engineering, Cloud Design, Deployment, DevOps.
• 15+ years of experience leading system design, architecture leveraging private clouds and AWS and/or Azure/GCP.
• 10+ years of demonstrable building and operating infrastructure as code. Infra automation, comfortable with many flavors of Linux.
• 15+ years of experience in building high‑performance, highly‑available and scalable distributed systems in the cloud.
• 15+ years of experience in building and managing high‑performance, highly‑available and scalable hybrid cloud environments.
• Excellent cross‑group collaboration, outstanding verbal and written communication.

Skills

• Expert‑level knowledge of containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Strong background in DevOps and MLOps principles and tooling.
• Proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Python, Go).
• Exceptional strategic planning, organizational, and written/verbal communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience managing infrastructure for training and inference of large language models (LLMs) or foundation models.
• Experience in a regulated industry with strict compliance requirements.
• AI private cloud - building and operating.

Pay & Benefits

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several US geographic markets. Base pay ranges from $184,000/year in our lowest geographic market to $376,000/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on market location and may vary depending on job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience.

General Description of All Benefits

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life, AD&D insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) & Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Long‑term/Short‑term Disability
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) program
• 401K Plan with Company Match
• 18‑21 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) a year based on tenure
• 12 Public Holidays
• Paid Parental leave
• Pre‑tax commuter benefits
• MTV - Free Electric Car Charging Station

General Description of Other Compensation

Other Compensation includes, but is not limited to, bonuses, equity, or other forms of compensation that would be offered to the hired applicant in addition to their established salary range or wage scale.

Details to Consider

• This job posting may be closed prior to the stated end date for application if all openings are filled.
• Coupang has the right to rescind an offer of employment if a candidate is found to have submitted false information as part of the application process.
• Those eligible for employment protection (recipients of veteran’s benefits, the disabled, etc.) may receive preferential treatment for employment in accordance with applicable laws.

Equal Opportunities for All

Coupang is an equal opportunity employer. Our unprecedented success could not be possible without the valuable inputs of our globally diverse team.

Privacy Notice

Your personal information will be collected and managed by Coupang as stated in the Application Privacy Notice located below.

• https://www.coupang.jobs/privacy-policy/

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or gender (including pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, transgender status), national origin, age, disability, medical condition, HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C status, marital status, military or veteran status, use of a trained dog guide or service animal, political activities, or affiliations, citizenship, or any other characteristic or class protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodation in the recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at [e-mail].