Director, AI and Agentic Engineering
Exelixis
August 13, 2026
On-site
Alameda, CA
IT
Essential Duties/Responsibilities:
- Define and execute AI engineering strategy, roadmap, and operating model for enterprise AI platforms and AI-enabled solutions.
- Lead design and delivery of scalable AI platform capabilities (model access patterns, agent orchestration, RAG, evaluation frameworks, prompt/artifact management, observability, governance, reusable integrations).
- Oversee end-to-end production-grade generative/agentic AI and automation solutions improving productivity, decision support, operational efficiency, and business outcomes.
- Apply product management practices (opportunity assessment, stakeholder discovery, prioritization, UX definition, value measurement, adoption planning, lifecycle management).
- Partner with business, product, architecture, data, cybersecurity/privacy/legal/compliance, and enterprise application teams to deliver secure, governed, scalable AI solutions.
- Establish AI-native engineering standards (spec-driven development, agent-assisted delivery, automated testing, CI/CD, DevSecOps, release management, operational support).
- Ensure reliability, security, scalability, auditability, explainability, human oversight, measurable autonomy, and responsible AI use.
- Manage vendor/provider and technology decisions; assess build-vs-buy and TCO.
- Create/monitor success metrics (adoption, productivity impact, quality, latency, cost, risk reduction, reuse, satisfaction, business value).
- Lead architecture/prompt/security/model-and-agent evaluations and release-readiness/post-production monitoring.
- Develop talent, documentation, playbooks, reference architectures, and enablement.
Supervisory Responsibilities:
- Recruit, appraise, and develop staff; manage budgets and expense control.
Education/Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree + 13 years (or Master’s + 11 years) or equivalent.
- 5+ years in AI Engineering or Cloud platform Engineering; leadership over cross-functional teams; full lifecycle cloud platform development.
Required Skills:
- Advanced AI engineering and AI platform architecture; generative and agentic AI patterns.
- LLMs, prompt/context engineering, tool use, multi-step workflows, orchestration, RAG, vector search, evaluation/monitoring, guardrails.
- Cloud AI/data platforms (AWS, Amazon Bedrock, Databricks Mosaic AI or equivalent); APIs, event-driven architectures, data pipelines, identity/secrets management, enterprise security.
- AI-native engineering practices (coding agents, AI-assisted tools, spec-driven development, automated testing, CI/CD, DevSecOps, observability).
- Responsible AI, data governance/privacy, cybersecurity, model risk, auditability, human-in-the-loop, regulatory/policy compliance.
- Leadership, communication, stakeholder management, and ability to work in ambiguity.
Preferred:
- Life sciences/biotechnology/clinical/regulatory/GxP/SOX/21 CFR Part 11/validated system environments.
Travel:
- Up to 10%.
Application/Accommodation:
- If you need a recruiting-process accommodation due to a disability, email ApplicantAccommodations@exelixis.com.
- Define and execute AI engineering strategy, roadmap, and operating model for enterprise AI platforms and AI-enabled solutions.
- Lead design and delivery of scalable AI platform capabilities (model access patterns, agent orchestration, RAG, evaluation frameworks, prompt/artifact management, observability, governance, reusable integrations).
- Oversee end-to-end production-grade generative/agentic AI and automation solutions improving productivity, decision support, operational efficiency, and business outcomes.
- Apply product management practices (opportunity assessment, stakeholder discovery, prioritization, UX definition, value measurement, adoption planning, lifecycle management).
- Partner with business, product, architecture, data, cybersecurity/privacy/legal/compliance, and enterprise application teams to deliver secure, governed, scalable AI solutions.
- Establish AI-native engineering standards (spec-driven development, agent-assisted delivery, automated testing, CI/CD, DevSecOps, release management, operational support).
- Ensure reliability, security, scalability, auditability, explainability, human oversight, measurable autonomy, and responsible AI use.
- Manage vendor/provider and technology decisions; assess build-vs-buy and TCO.
- Create/monitor success metrics (adoption, productivity impact, quality, latency, cost, risk reduction, reuse, satisfaction, business value).
- Lead architecture/prompt/security/model-and-agent evaluations and release-readiness/post-production monitoring.
- Develop talent, documentation, playbooks, reference architectures, and enablement.
Supervisory Responsibilities:
- Recruit, appraise, and develop staff; manage budgets and expense control.
Education/Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree + 13 years (or Master’s + 11 years) or equivalent.
- 5+ years in AI Engineering or Cloud platform Engineering; leadership over cross-functional teams; full lifecycle cloud platform development.
Required Skills:
- Advanced AI engineering and AI platform architecture; generative and agentic AI patterns.
- LLMs, prompt/context engineering, tool use, multi-step workflows, orchestration, RAG, vector search, evaluation/monitoring, guardrails.
- Cloud AI/data platforms (AWS, Amazon Bedrock, Databricks Mosaic AI or equivalent); APIs, event-driven architectures, data pipelines, identity/secrets management, enterprise security.
- AI-native engineering practices (coding agents, AI-assisted tools, spec-driven development, automated testing, CI/CD, DevSecOps, observability).
- Responsible AI, data governance/privacy, cybersecurity, model risk, auditability, human-in-the-loop, regulatory/policy compliance.
- Leadership, communication, stakeholder management, and ability to work in ambiguity.
Preferred:
- Life sciences/biotechnology/clinical/regulatory/GxP/SOX/21 CFR Part 11/validated system environments.
Travel:
- Up to 10%.
Application/Accommodation:
- If you need a recruiting-process accommodation due to a disability, email ApplicantAccommodations@exelixis.com.