Senior Manager of AI & Machine Learning, Zapier
$280.3-420.5k
+ Offers Equity + Offers Bonus
More information about location
Workflow automation service
Be an early applicant
Workflow automation service
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
$280.3-420.5k
+ Offers Equity + Offers Bonus
More information about location
501-1000 employees
Company mission
Zapier's mission is to Make Automation Work for Everyone!
Role
Who you are
- You have 8+ years of experience in Machine Learning and AI with a track record of leading teams and projects that deliver high-impact solutions
- You have experience leading the end-to-end lifecycle of ML projects, from ideation to deployment and monitoring, and are familiar with the challenges and opportunities in scaling ML/AI systems
- You possess strong leadership and strategic planning skills
- You’ve successfully led technical teams - both engineers and managers - through ambiguity, set clear goals, and driven your organization to meet them
- You have a knack for aligning AI/ML strategies with business objectives and can effectively communicate the value of these technologies to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
- You have deep technical expertise in ML/AI, including a strong understanding of model development, evaluation, data pipeline optimization, and deployment strategies
- You’re well-versed in AI/ML frameworks and tools, and you can guide teams in selecting the right technologies and methodologies for each project—especially when balancing speed, safety, reliability, and cost
- You have a solid foundation in data and software engineering
- You understand the importance of clean, reproducible code and are familiar with best practices in data engineering, MLOps/LLMOps, and CI/CD pipelines
- You operate at a portfolio level with strong product and business thinking: you proactively identify high-leverage opportunities for AI/ML (not just respond to known problems), translate them into a clear roadmap with measurable user and business outcomes, and build the cross-functional alignment and operating mechanisms needed to deliver impact at scale—communicating effectively with stakeholders across Product, Engineering, and beyond
- You understand that perfect is the enemy of good
- You will default to action by initially shipping solutions that simply work and work simply while iterating as needed
- You are a coach at heart: You understand that leading a team is about coaching and mentoring people on stakeholder management, communication and other soft skills and you’re comfortable redirecting people gracefully when they could be on a better path
- You have helped people develop their career plans: You understand how to help people find their strengths and give them opportunities to grow and develop them
What the job involves
- We’re thrilled to invite you to join the Data team at Zapier as a Senior Manager, Machine Learning & AI
- You’ll play a critical role in shaping our AI & ML strategy, guiding the development and deployment of cutting-edge models, platforms, and tools, and empowering teams across Zapier to leverage AI & ML effectively
- Your leadership will be instrumental in scaling our AI/ML capabilities and outcomes—balancing platform enablement work (that helps product teams build with AI/ML faster and more safely) with applied delivery work (that ships high-impact AI/ML solutions directly and through reusable AI/ML data products)
- You’ll partner closely with senior leaders across Product and Engineering to ensure our AI/ML investments deliver tangible business value and align with our overall company goals
- Zapier is a fast-growing and remote-first company, so you’ll get experience on many different projects to support our stakeholders. Here are some things you might get to help our teams with:
- Lead and manage teams of AI & Machine Learning Engineers to deliver high-impact AI/ML initiatives that drive business value and align with company goals
- Own, execute, and iteratively evolve Zapier’s AI/ML strategy—ensuring our models, platforms, and tooling are scalable, reliable, and aligned with business needs, and continuously refining direction based on learnings, stakeholder input, and measurable outcomes
- Coach and guide your teams in the development and deployment of machine learning models and AI-enabled systems, providing technical expertise and strategic direction while maintaining a high bar for safety, reliability, and cost-effectiveness
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for AI/ML to enhance our products and services, and to drive the integration of AI capabilities across the organization—whether through direct engagements with product teams or by enabling product teams via shared platforms and tools
- Foster a culture of innovation within the AI/ML org, encouraging experimentation and the adoption of new technologies and methodologies while keeping delivery pragmatic and value-focused
- Communicate AI/ML strategy, tradeoffs, and results with clarity—aligning stakeholders, accelerating decisions, and making measurable progress visible across the company
- Design and continuously run the operating rhythms that keep AI/ML execution predictable - regular prioritization and roadmap alignment, clear quality and launch bars, and tight cross-team coordination - so we consistently ship near-term wins while compounding long-term leverage through reuse and enablement
- Our stack is best summed up by: Databricks, AWS(S3), Python/ Typescript, Kafka
Application process
- Deadline to Apply: March 20, 2026 at 4:00 AM GMT
Our take
Even before remote working became the "in thing", freelancers, small business owners, and large organisations have found themselves needing more and more software platforms to serve their operational needs. As people used more software services, Zapier founders saw the need to connect the actions between these software and save everyone some time.
Zapier is the largest integration and automation tool for businesses. Since its founding, Zapier has grown its suite of automation offerings across almost every mainstream software service. The company is one of the most successful to come out of Y Combinator and has also been a pioneer of remote working.
Zapier has so far been able to capitalise heavily on its advantage as one of the first entrants and has had very little actual competition. Software services aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and organisations are only going to need more of them. This puts Zapier in a strong position for growth, but also opens up room for bolder companies to get in on the action. Companies like Airtable and Integromat are already preying on more niche segments of Zapier's market share.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
38% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Oct 2012
$1.3m
SEED
Sep 2012
$0.2m
SEED
Total funding: $1.5m
Company benefits
- Work from anywhere
- Bonus program
- Unlimited vacation policy
- Great healthcare + dental + vision coverage*
- Retirement plan with company match*
- Stock options for every Zapien**
- 2 annual company retreats to awesome places
- 14 weeks paid leave for new parents
- Home office setup stipend
- Professional development allowance
Additional info
- As a fully remote company with 800+ team members across 40+ states, 38 countries, and 18+ timezones, we’ve adopted a culture of asynchronous work. This work style allows teams to collaborate effectively across locations, time zones, skills, and each individual’s energy levels, and empowers employees to work in a setting that fits their needs. In practice, we live on Slack, with most conversations in public channels. It mimics the open-office feel and allows everyone to search the chat logs if they need to find something that happened when they weren’t around
Leadership
Wade Foster
(Co-Founder & CEO)Prior to co-founding Zapier, wasEmail Marketing Manager with Veterans United Home Loans, and Customer Development Lead at The Idea Works.
Bryan Helmig
(Co-Founder & CTO)Was previously Product Dev/Manager at Veterans United Home Loans.
Mike Knoop
(Co-Founder)Was CPO and Head of Labs at Zapier before becoming President. Previously was a Graduate Research at the University of Missouri.
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