Manager, AI Engineering and Vendor Operations

The posting, as NPR wrote it

OVERVIEW

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Intro to Position

NPR's AI Labs team is looking for a Manager of AI Engineering and Vendor Operations. This person will serve on the AI Labs leadership team and help inform NPR's AI technical strategy. We are seeking a player-coach style who understands the complexities of building adaptive and conscientious AI coding teams, and can help us apply rigor and standards to our infrastructure decisions and rollouts. In this role, you will supervise the mid-level engineering staff, provide mentorship and support to NPR's larger engineering teams and own the evaluation and deployment of the team's AI tools and vendors. This role suits someone who can weigh build-versus-buy decisions honestly, explain technical trade-offs to non-technical colleagues, and hold both vendors and our own work to NPR's standards for privacy, security, and accuracy. This is a chance to shape a new team and have a tangible effect on how NPR uses AI responsibly in service of its mission, on a team built on respect, trust, and work-life balance.

Responsibilities

• People Leadership: Manage and mentor a team of entry and mid-level AI engineers, including hiring, onboarding, and supporting each person's professional growth.
• Delivery: Lead technical planning, scoping, and sprint execution for AI Labs engineering work, such as NPR's AI-powered metadata service, in partnership with AI Labs leadership and editorial and business stakeholders.
• Engineering Standards: Work with AI Labs leadership to develop AI coding frameworks, practices, and expectations for the team.
• Code Quality and Architecture: Review designs and code, and contribute hands-on where it helps the team, keeping systems maintainable, secure, and consistent with NPR's technical standards.
• Testing and Evaluation: Build and maintain automated testing and model evaluation practices, including regression tests and evaluation checks before release, aligned with quality bars set by the product team.
• Production Support: Coordinate the team's response to production bugs and infrastructure incidents, and

[…]
nancial well-being. Plan options include medical, dental, vision, life/ accidental death and dismemberment, long-term disability, short-term disability, and voluntary retirement savings to all eligible NPR employees.

Does this sound like you? If so, we want to hear from you.

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The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum salaries NPR expects to provide for new hires for the position across all US locations.
NPR Pay Range
$180,000 — $206,000 USD

NPR is an Equal Opportunity Employer . NPR is committed to being an inclusive workplace that welcomes diverse and unique perspectives, all working toward the same goal – to create a more informed public. Qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, age, religion, religious belief, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions, lactation, and reproductive health decisions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, transgender status, gender non-conforming status, intersex status, sexual stereotypes, nationality, citizenship status, personal appearance, marital status, family status, family responsibilities, military status, veteran status, mental and physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, genetic characteristics of yourself or a family member, political views and affiliation, unemployment status, protective order status, status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, or any other basis prohibited under applicable law.

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