Head of AI

Carbon partners with technology companies to redesign how they build and how they operate. We construct nearshore engineering hubs that our clients come to own outright, and we deploy embedded AI teams, our Carbon AI Pods, that transform how organizations run. Every engagement is structured around a defined business case and accountable to a measurable outcome.

Why Carbon?

Most AI initiatives stall between strategy and production. Carbon closes that gap. We embed senior practitioners and specialist teams inside client organizations, redesign the workflows that matter, and stay accountable until the outcome is delivered. This role puts you inside those transformations from the first diagnostic through to production.

The Role

We are hiring a Head of AI to lead the technical strategy, design, and delivery of our client AI engagements. This is a client-facing role that spans AI strategy and hands-on delivery.
You will be the most senior AI practitioner on every engagement. You will work directly with client leadership to diagnose how their business operates today, identify where AI can deliver structural change, and design the operating model that gets them there. You will then lead the delivery: defining the technical architecture, shaping the specialist team Carbon assembles around you, and overseeing execution end to end.

You will work across multiple client engagements concurrently, each with a different industry context, team size, and product surface. You own the technical relationship with every client, and you make sure every engagement delivers against its business case.

What You’ll Do

Lead client AI diagnostics. Run discovery and scoping with client leadership. Audit how the business operates, identify where AI can create the most structural value, and define the workflows that justify transformation.
Design the transformation roadmap. Translate the diagnostic into a business case, technical architecture, and operating model the client can commit to. Sequence the work into phases with clear outcomes at each stage.
Own technical direction. Set the architectural standards, model choices, evaluation frameworks, and production readiness criteria for every engagement. Make the calls the client cannot make on their own.
Lead delivery end to end. Direct the specialist team Carbon assembles for each engagement. Set the delivery cadence, unblock execution, and hold the team accountable to the business case.
Act as the client’s trusted advisor. Operate as a senior strategist alongside the client’s executive team. Give clear recommendations, take a position, and say difficult things early.
Stay hands-on where it matters. Go deep into the technical work where leadership presence is needed: validating architecture, reviewing production systems, unblocking the team.
Codify the methodology. Turn each engagement into reusable operational knowledge. Build the diagnostic frameworks, technical playbooks, and delivery patterns that compound across clients.
Build the practice. Work with Carbon’s leadership to construct our AI delivery capability: define the specialist roles engagements need, help select and develop the practitioners, and advise on which industries and client profiles Carbon should pursue next.

What We’re Looking For

Production AI experience. You have shipped real AI systems into production, with full ownership of model performance, evaluation, and integration. You know what breaks in production and how to engineer around it.
Embedded delivery background. You have worked inside client organizations as the norm of your role: at a top-tier strategy or applied AI consultancy, on a forward-deployed engineering team, or in a comparable setting where senior client engagement was part of the job.
Technical foundation. A degree and early-career background in computer science, machine learning, applied mathematics, or a research discipline with an applied AI focus. Prior experience as a software engineer, machine learning engineer, forward-deployed engineer, or applied researcher.
Breadth of exposure. A track record across client environments of varying size, industry, and product type. You have seen how transformation lands in a 50-person product company and in a 5,000-person multinational, and you know what changes between them.
Transformation leadership. You have led at least one significant AI or technology transformation end to end inside a client organization. You can describe what worked, what did not, what you changed, and what the business case looked like at the end.
Strategic communication. You build credibility in high-stakes rooms. You can advise a CTO, CFO, or founder with confidence, translating between executive priorities and engineering execution.
Bias toward execution. You expect to be measured on what reaches production, and you are comfortable with that standard.
AI frontier awareness. Active, informed engagement with the applied AI field. You track what the leading labs are shipping and what is moving from research to production, and you hold a point of view on agentic systems, model selection, and evaluation frameworks.
Comfort with ambiguity. You thrive where the methodology is being built alongside the work, and where every engagement demands critical thinking and a strategic mindset.

What’s in It for You?

A category-defining role. You will shape the methodology, the standards, and the team behind Carbon’s AI transformation work, with the latitude of a founding leadership hire.
Competitive compensation. A strong base with performance upside tied to the outcomes you deliver.
Access and breadth. Direct work with senior client leadership on every engagement, and a portfolio of applied AI work no single in-house role can match.
Fully remote. Work from anywhere.