AI Product Director
(AI Product Transformation & Agentic Systems)
Compensation: $250,000–$350,000 base salary plus potential bonus
Location: San Diego or San Francisco, CA – Hybrid
The Company
An established, privately owned financial technology business is undertaking a major AI-led transformation of its lending platform and customer lifecycle. The business has substantial proprietary data, deep domain expertise and production AI already delivering measurable improvements across core workflows.
Rather than experimenting with isolated proofs of concept, the company has executive sponsorship, a defined transformation roadmap and a clear mandate to redesign critical business processes around AI.
The Opportunity
This is a senior, highly visible role sitting at the centre of that transformation. You will partner directly with the executive leading AI strategy, helping design the next generation of AI-enabled products while owning the day-to-day execution required to move them into production.
The opportunity suits a product leader who wants genuine design authority, technical depth and zero-to-one ownership rather than a traditional portfolio-management role.
The Role
You will co-design AI product blueprints, lead cross-functional delivery teams and turn complex operational processes into scalable AI-first workflows.
You will work closely with Data Science, engineering partners and functional leaders, while also building and developing a small AI Product team and helping determine how specialist external engineering capabilities are selected and deployed.
What You’ll Do
Co-author detailed product and engineering blueprints for new AI initiatives.
Reimagine customer-facing and operational workflows using LLMs, agentic systems, data science and automation.
Lead multiple cross-functional AI delivery pods from discovery through production deployment.
Partner with Data Science teams to define evaluation rubrics, golden datasets, accuracy thresholds and model-performance criteria.
Evaluate external engineering partners, challenge architecture proposals and hold vendors accountable to clear technical and product specifications.
Design human-in-the-loop, deterministic and LLM-based quality-control frameworks before engineering builds begin.
Communicate delivery health, risks and technical trade-offs to senior business and executive stakeholders.
What You’ll Bring
8+ years of product management experience, including meaningful ownership of AI-enabled products delivered into production.
Evidence of taking products or processes from zero to one rather than managing one narrow component of a mature platform.
Strong working knowledge of modern LLMs, agentic architectures, AI workflow design and evaluation.
Enough technical depth to challenge engineers, data scientists and external partners rather than delegating technical judgement entirely.
Experience within fintech, payments, lending or an adjacent regulated financial-services environment.
Strong executive presence and the ability to lead technical and functional stakeholders through difficult decisions.
A hands-on, high-velocity operating style combining strategic product thinking with disciplined execution.
What This Role Requires
Demonstrable experience designing and shipping production AI products, not simply managing AI programmes or adding AI terminology to traditional ML work.
Genuine zero-to-one product ownership across complex workflows.
Practitioner-level AI fluency and sufficient technical aptitude to assess engineering proposals credibly.
Ability to lead senior cross-functional groups independently and maintain execution quality across multiple initiatives.
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, Economics or another relevant technical discipline.
Tech Stack
Large language models and agentic AI systems
AI workflow orchestration
Data science and machine learning
Golden datasets and evaluation frameworks
Human-in-the-loop systems
Deterministic validation and rule-based controls
AI / model governance and explainability
Why Join
Join an AI programme that already has executive backing, production deployments and proven internal adoption rather than one still searching for its first meaningful use case.
Work directly with senior leadership and have material influence over product design, technical direction, vendor strategy and how the AI Product function is built.
Apply modern AI to commercially critical, high-stakes workflows where improvements in decisioning, speed and customer experience have direct business impact.
About People in AI
People in AI is a specialist recruitment partner connecting exceptional AI, machine learning, data, and engineering talent with some of the most ambitious technology companies in the world. We work closely with founders, technical leaders, and hiring teams to represent opportunities accurately and help candidates assess genuine fit.
