Director of Engineer, AI Developer Experience

Description

Attentive is the AI marketing platform for 1:1 personalization redefining the way brands and people connect. We’re the only marketing platform that combines powerful technology with human expertise to build authentic customer relationships. By unifying SMS, RCS, email, and push notifications, our AI-powered personalization engine delivers bespoke experiences that drive performance, revenue, and loyalty through real-time behavioral insights.

Recognized as the 1 provider in SMS Marketing by G2, Attentive partners with more than 8,000 customers across 70+ industries. Leading global brands like Crate and Barrel, Urban Outfitters, and Carter’s work with us to enable billions of interactions that power tens of billions in revenue for our customers.

With a distributed global workforce and employee hubs in New York City, San Francisco, London, and Sydney, Attentive’s team has been consistently recognized for its performance and culture. We’re proud to be included in Deloitte’s Fast 500 (four years running!), LinkedIn’s Top Startups , Forbes’ Cloud 100 (five years running!), Inc.’s Best Workplaces , and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index !

About the role

AI is rapidly changing who can build software and how quickly they can do it. At Attentive, we’re strongly leaning into that opportunity across the company: helping engineers ship better software faster, and helping people in sales and other business teams build tools that solve their own problems.

You’ll help us build two teams, each with its own manager:

AI Developer Experience: Build the tooling, agent workflows, practical testing infrastructure, and development environments that accelerate our engineering organization.

AI Business Enablement: Give non-technical employees the tools, training, and secure infrastructure to build and run useful apps and automations with AI.

These teams share a goal: make it easy to turn an idea into working software, with the right standards for how that software is built, connected, and maintained.

We already have AI tools, internal tooling, and cloud environments in place. Your job is to turn that foundation into a consistent way of working that people want to adopt—and a measurable improvement in how quickly the company delivers.

This hybrid role is based in our New York office, with in-office collaboration Tuesday through Thursday each week.

What you’ll own

AI Developer Experience

AI development workflows: Make AI a core part of planning, implementation, testing, review, and delivery, with clear human accountability for architecture and outcomes.

Context for agents: Give coding agents the documentation, architectural guidance, and system context they need to work effectively in our codebase.

Trusted testing: Build fast, reliable ways to validate individual services and distributed systems, including realistic test data and integration environments. Work with our teams to understand their pain points, and understand how our infrastructure fits together.

Development infrastructure: Improve cloud environments, builds, CI, and code review so engineers and agents can work efficiently as the volume of changes grows.

AI Business Enablement

Tools for non-technical builders: Create a supported way for sales, go-to-market, and other business teams to build internal apps and automations using natural language and AI coding tools.

Safe access to company systems: Partner with Security and IT to provide approved integrations, permissioned data access, and secure handling of credentials.

A path from prototype to dependable tool: Establish straightforward standards for testing, deployment, monitoring, ownership, and ongoing maintenance, with clear criteria for when engineering support is needed.

Practical enablement: Help employees identify valuable use cases, get started quickly, and reuse successful patterns through templates, training, and hands-on support.

Responsibilities

• Set a clear strategy across both teams, balancing shared infrastructure with the different needs of engineers and business users.
• Lead and develop two managers, hire strong teams, and set a high bar for technical execution and user experience.
• Stay close to the technology: evaluate tools, prototype workflows, and make sound decisions about what to build and what to buy.
• Drive adoption through useful products, strong defaults, and close partnerships with Engineering, Security, IT, and business leaders.
• Measure results through shorter delivery cycles, reliable software, time saved, and sustained use of the tools your teams provide.
• Keep improving the approach as models and tools evolve, turning promising advances into practical capabilities.
• What you’ll bring
• Hands-on AI experience and a clear point of view. You use coding agents regularly and have changed how a team builds software with AI. You can explain what worked, what failed, and how you measured the difference.
• Technical and organizational depth. You bring 10+ years in software engineering and 4+ years leading engineering teams, including experience managing managers.
• Strong platform fundamentals. You’ve built developer tooling, test infrastructure, or development platforms for complex systems, and understand what makes engineers trust and adopt them.
• Sound judgment about safe AI development. You understand agent workflows, context, sandboxed environments, permissions, evaluation, and cost management.
• A product mindset. You learn how people work, identify their biggest obstacles, and build tools they choose to use.
• The ability to serve different audiences. You can work credibly with senior engineers and help non-technical colleagues turn a business problem into a useful, maintainable tool.
• High standards for leadership. You develop managers, give direct feedback, make thoughtful talent decisions, and stay close enough to the work to guide it.
• You'll get competitive perks and benefits , from health & wellness to equity, to help you bring your best self to work.
• For US based applicants:
• The US base salary range for this full-time position is $285,600 - $428,400 annually + equity + benefits
• Our salary ranges are determined by role, level and location
• LI-MDK1
• Attentive Company Values
• Default to Action - Move swiftly and with purpose
• Be One Unstoppable Team - Rally as each other’s champions
• Champion the Customer - Our success is defined by our customers' success
• Act Like an Owner - Take responsibility for Attentive’s success
• Learn more about AWAKE , Attentive’s collective of employee resource groups.
• If you do not meet all the requirements listed here, we still encourage you to apply! No job description is perfect, and we may also have another opportunity that closely matches your skills and experience.
• At Attentive, we know that our Company's strength lies in the diversity of our employees. Attentive is an Equal Opportunity Employer and we welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Our policy is to provide equal employment opportunities for all employees, applicants and covered individuals regardless of protected characteristics. We prioritize and maintain a fair, inclusive and equitable workplace free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Attentive is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities. If you need any assistance or reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know.