Director, Engineering - Head of Applied AI at Starburst

San Francisco, California, United States

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Not SpecifiedCompensation

Senior (5 to 8 years)Experience Level

Full TimeJob Type

UnknownVisa

Data Platforms, AIIndustries

Requirements

Candidates should possess 10+ years of engineering experience, with at least 5 years focused on AI/ML systems, data platforms, or infrastructure. A deep understanding of the LLM lifecycle, including embedding, inference, RAG, and governance, is essential. Proven leadership experience with platform teams or AI infrastructure in a production environment is required. Familiarity with frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, or NVIDIA NIMs is necessary. Hands-on experience with Iceberg, Trino, or other modern data platforms is considered a plus. Excellent communication and execution skills are also required.

Responsibilities

The Director of Engineering will own engineering execution across AI workflows, agents, and model integrations. They will partner with Product Management and Go-to-Market teams to define the roadmap and co-own the AI strategy. This role involves building and managing a high-performing AI engineering team, including UX, backend, and infrastructure specialists. Collaboration across Cloud, Platform, and Product teams is crucial to ensure AI cohesion. The Director will establish architecture principles for inference, vector search, and agentic pipelines. They will also represent Starburst Engineering in customer briefings and strategic Go-to-Market efforts.

Skills

AI/ML Systems

Data Platforms

Inference

RAG

LLM Lifecycle

LangChain

LlamaIndex

NVIDIA NIMs

Iceberg

Trino

Architecture Principles

Communication

Execution

Starburst

Data analytics and SQL engine distribution

About Starburst

Starburst specializes in data analytics by providing a distribution and support for the Trino SQL engine, which is designed for efficient and scalable analytics on data lakes and various data sources. Their products, Starburst Galaxy and Starburst Enterprise, allow clients to access and analyze data quickly, whether in the cloud or on-premises. Starburst connects seamlessly with popular data visualization tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Looker, making it easier for users to integrate and access their data. What sets Starburst apart from competitors is its enhancement of the open-source Trino engine with additional connectors, security features, and dedicated enterprise support. The company's goal is to help organizations achieve faster data insights and better decision-making through improved analytics capabilities.

Boston, MassachusettsHeadquarters

2017Year Founded

$402.7MTotal Funding

SERIES_DCompany Stage

Data & Analytics, Enterprise SoftwareIndustries

501-1,000Employees

Benefits

Competitive salary & attractive stock grants

Remote-friendly work options

Quality & affordable insurance

Flexible & generous paid time off

Environment of transparency, honesty & respect

Risks

Increased competition from companies like Dell could impact Starburst's market share.

The rapid growth of unique data vendors may lead to increased market complexity.

Enterprises moving towards single-cloud strategies could challenge Starburst's multi-cloud offerings.

Differentiation

Starburst offers both cloud-based and on-premises solutions, catering to diverse client needs.

The company enhances the open-source Trino engine with additional connectors and security features.

Starburst's platform integrates with popular data tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Looker.

Upsides

Starburst Galaxy achieved 3x year-over-year growth in active customers and usage volume.

The platform enables 10X faster data processing and 66% cost reduction for clients like Arity.

Starburst's Icehouse platform leverages open-source Trino and Apache Iceberg for scalability.

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