Director - Artificial Intelligence

Overview

The Director - Artificial Intelligence leads the end-to-end development and deployment of sophisticated, mission-critical AI platforms within Space42's portfolios, including geospatial, digital twins, and defense sectors. This role merges deep technical proficiency with leadership responsibility, managing the complete AI lifecycle—from research and model building to deployment, scalability, and operational control.

Key Responsibilities

• Direct the architecture and implementation of foundational and application-specific AI models focusing on geospatial AI, computer vision, predictive analytics, and decision-support frameworks.
• Establish and enforce architectures suitable for large-scale, secure, and high-performance AI deployments on cloud, hybrid, and edge infrastructures.
• Deliver hands-on mentorship and guidance to senior engineers and AI experts, ensuring excellence in technology adoption and scalability.
• Lead adoption of cutting-edge AI frameworks, MLOps practices, and rigorous engineering standards.
• Manage multiple concurrent AI projects spanning commercial, governmental, and defense sectors; ensure projects are delivered within scope, time, and quality parameters.
• Translate complex operational and mission needs into actionable AI roadmaps and delivery schedules.
• Mitigate and manage risks concerning model accuracy, data integrity, scalability, and operational boundaries.
• Facilitate seamless transitions of AI innovations from research to production environments.
• Lead, develop, and grow a team of AI engineers, machine learning researchers, and software developers.
• Institute standards for coding, reviews, and quality assurance processes, fostering a culture of accountability and continual advancement.
• Oversee mature MLOps pipelines ensuring robust training, testing, deployment, monitoring, and retraining workflows.
• Guarantee AI models maintain reliability and high availability even under constrained conditions.
• Monitor model drift and performance dips, implementing appropriate remedial measures.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, platform, security, and operations teams; act as senior technical liaison in dialogues with executives, clients, partners, and government officials.
• Contribute expertise to technical solution designs, proposal formulations, and strategic bidding where AI capabilities are central.
• Maintain transparent communication of progress, risks, and outcomes to senior leadership.

Qualifications and Expertise

• Advanced degree (Master's or PhD) in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related discipline.
• Strong expertise in Linux and system-level programming.
• Minimum 8 years professional experience in software engineering.
• At least 8 years of hands-on AI and machine learning development within production-grade environments.
• Minimum 5 years experience designing and sustaining data warehouses or data lakes.
• Minimum 5 years experience creating and maintaining custom ETL pipelines.
• Proven record of deploying AI systems at scale.
• Capability to understand and implement algorithms derived from scientific literature.
• Demonstrated leadership and mentorship skills with senior technical teams.

Technical Skills

• Design and delivery of large-scale AI systems and foundational AI models.
• Expertise with AI/ML frameworks, especially PyTorch.
• Strong knowledge of data warehouse and data lake architectures.
• Experienced in custom ETL pipeline design and maintenance.
• Proficient in MLOps and AI production lifecycle management.
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
• Programming skills in Python, and compiled languages like C++, Rust, Go, and Java.
• Competence in performance profiling and optimizing AI systems.

Behavioural Traits

• Strong analytical capability and systems thinking approach.
• High integrity, ethical standards, and engineering discipline.
• Ability to build and nurture collaborative, high-performing teams.
• Effectively communicates complex technical information to varied audiences.
• Capable of leading decisively under high-pressure delivery schedules.

Benefits

• Competitive pay and extensive medical insurance coverage inclusive of family members.
• Wellness initiatives focused on enhancing personal and professional wellbeing.
• Access to exclusive UAE discount programs for lifestyle and leisure.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate thrives in performance-driven environments, embraces curiosity and adaptability amid ambiguity, and demonstrates a proactive approach to transforming space technologies through AI-enabled smart solutions designed for the future.