--- title: 'Director of AI at APPLY' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-ai-apply-toronto-av70mmqat86d' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-11' --- # Director of AI at APPLY - **Company:** APPLY - **Location:** Toronto, Canada - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-09-09 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11 - **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/applydigital/83d148d7-51c1-470b-9d53-a535ee08334a ## Job description ## ABOUT APPLY APPLY is the Agentic Customer Experience (ACx) partner for the world's most ambitious consumer and entertainment brands. We bring together deep domain expertise across Retail, CPG, Sports, and Media with AI-native delivery capability, designing and delivering agentic solutions that turn CX vision into commercial reality. We are the partner of choice for brands like Arc'teryx, NFL, Lululemon, and Kraft Heinz. For more information, visit applydigital.com. LOCATION: APPLY is hybrid/remote friendly. The preferred candidate should be based in Canada, working in hours that align to ET (Eastern Timezone) or PT (Pacific Timezone). ## THE ROLE: ## RESPONSIBILITIES - Lead the technical strategy, architecture, and delivery of AI applications from discovery and experimentation through production and scale. - Work with client executives, product leaders, architects, and engineering teams to identify valuable AI opportunities and translate them into achievable technical roadmaps. - Design AI applications that combine models, enterprise data, APIs, software components, user experiences, and human workflows. - Guide the implementation of agentic workflows, retrieval-augmented generation, enterprise search, predictive models, and AI capabilities embedded in digital products. - Determine when to use deterministic software, machine learning, large language models, human review, or a combination of approaches. - Establish evaluation-driven development practices, including test datasets, error analysis, deterministic checks, model-based evaluation, and business outcome measurement. - Ensure solutions meet production requirements for reliability, observability, scalability, latency, maintainability, security, and cost. - Guide practices for CI/CD, model and prompt versioning, monitoring, tracing, regression testing, and ongoing optimization. - Provide hands-on technical leadership through prototyping, architecture reviews, code reviews, troubleshooting, and delivery oversight. - Use AI-assisted development and coding agents effectively while maintaining appropriate verification, security, and human oversight. - Support proposals, discovery workshops, solution design, estimates, and executive presentations. - Develop reusable AI engineering patterns, reference architectures, accelerators, and delivery standards. - Contribute to hiring, technical mentorship, and the continued growth of APPLY’s AI capability. ## REQUIREMENTS - 10+ years of experience across software engineering, data engineering, machine learning, or related technology disciplines, including significant experience leading AI or ML solutions. - Demonstrated experience designing, building, and operating AI or machine learning applications in production—not only proofs of concept. - Strong software engineering foundation, including system design, APIs, data architecture, testing, security, cloud infrastructure, and production operations. - Hands-on proficiency in Python and experience with modern application, data, and AI engineering frameworks. - Strong understanding of LLMs, RAG, context engineering, agentic workflows, tool use, structured outputs, and model evaluation. - Experience grounding AI systems in enterprise data, including structured data, documents, semantic models, vector stores, or knowledge graphs. - Experience establishing evaluation and error-analysis practices for systems with probabilistic outputs. - Ability to balance model quality, reliability, latency, cost, security, and user experience. - Experience with cloud-native architecture and production deployment on GCP, AWS, or Azure. - Familiarity with containers, CI/CD, observability, and MLOps or LLMOps practices. - Demonstrated success in a consulting, professional-services, or complex client-facing environment. - Ability to move comfortably between executive conversations, product decisions, architecture discussions, and detailed technical problem-solving. - Excellent communication skills with both technical and non-technical audiences. - A degree in computer science, software engineering, artificial intelligence, data science, or a related field—or equivalent professional experience. ## NICE TO HAVES - Experience delivering AI solutions in regulated, privacy-sensitive, or large-scale enterprise environments. - Experience with model fine-tuning, open-source models, multimodal AI, voice agents, or computer-use agents. - Experience implementing enterprise AI security controls, including prompt-injection defenses, tool permissions, and human approval gates. - Experience building internal AI platforms, reusable agent frameworks, or developer enablement capabilities. - Experience contributing to organizational AI strategy, operating models, or technical standards. - Professional certifications or significant delivery experience with GCP, Snowflake, Databricks, or comparable platforms. ## LIFE AT APPLY People are at the core of everything we do at APPLY. We provide you with modern tools, systems and approaches, value your time, safety, and health, and strive to build a work community where you can thrive and grow. Here are a few benefits we offer to support you: Agentic Delivery: Our people work in a modern way to deliver client outcomes. Broaden your skills on a range of engagements with international brands that have a global impact. An inclusive and safe environment: We’re truly committed to building a culture where you are celebrated and everyone feels welcome and safe. AI & Strategic Upskilling: Accelerate your professional growth with generous training budgets and mentorship, with a specific focus on Agentic AI expertise and the critical human skills required for the future of work. Generous vacation policy: Work-life balance is key to our team’s success, so we offer flexible personal time off (PTO); allowing ample time away from work to promote overall well-being. Customizable benefits: Tailor your extended health and dental plan to your needs, priorities, and preferences. Flexible work arrangements: We work in a variety of ways, from remote, to in-office, to a blend of both. APPLY is a safe, respectful, and inclusive community where differences are celebrated. We are committed to equal opportunity and fostering a workplace where everyone belongs. Learn more in our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) section. For recruitment accommodations, please email careers@applydigital.com. ## About APPLY ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: APPLY is an agentic customer experience agency that helps brands deliver continuous, contextual, and personal experiences using Google Cloud’s AI and data platform. - **Entity Type**: Private (no disclosed funding rounds; appears bootstrapped or self-funded) - **Headquarters**: Toronto, Canada (inferred from multiple job listings and office locations) - **Founded**: Not publicly available - **Founders**: Not publicly available (Dr. Ali Alkhafaji serves as CEO; no founder information disclosed) ## Core Business - **Primary industries**: Digital agency / consulting, specializing in customer experience (CX), marketing, commerce, and data. - **Target customers**: B2B – enterprise brands in sports, media, CPG, and retail. - **Mission or purpose**: “Achieve human depth at agentic scale for the world’s most ambitious brands” – applying agentic intelligence across the entire experience ecosystem. ## Products & Services - **Agentic Customer Experience (ACx)**: End-to-end strategy, experience design, and delivery powered by Google Cloud (Gemini, BigQuery, Agent Platform). Includes predefined solutions for content, commerce, and data that are customizable and fast to deploy. - **Consulting & Strategy**: Deep industry expertise in sports, media, CPG, and retail; connecting cross-industry insights to unlock opportunities. - **Technology Implementation**: Google Cloud Premier Partner services, including integration of AI, data analytics, and marketing automation. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: 650+ specialists, 9 global locations, 1,000+ projects delivered (as of 2025) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Google Cloud (Premier Partner); extended partnerships across content, marketing, commerce, and data platforms. - **Growth Signals**: Recent focus on “agentic” capabilities; growing team (multiple open roles listed); expanding into remote and hybrid work globally. ## Competitive Advantages - **Agentic focus**: Early mover in “Agentic Customer Experience” (ACx), combining AI agents with human strategy. - **Google Cloud depth**: Premier Partner status provides deep access to Gemini, BigQuery, and Agent Platform. - **Industry specialization**: Proven track record in sports, media, CPG, and retail with 1,000+ delivered projects. - **Human + AI blend**: Emphasizes “human depth at agentic scale” – not just technology but also craft and strategy. ## Strategic Focus - **Current priorities**: Scaling agentic solutions across content, commerce, and data; expanding partnerships; hiring for key technical and leadership roles (Principal Agentic Engineer, Tech Lead, Product Design Lead). - **Direction for growth**: Continue leading the agentic CX space, deepening Google Cloud integration, and entering new verticals. ## Why Work Here - **Culture highlights**: Collaborative, driven, inclusive environment with a focus on continuous growth. Diversity celebrated and everyone is encouraged to “come as you are.” - **Remote/hybrid/office policy**: Flexible – “a variety of ways, from remote to in-office, to a blend of both.” Some roles are fully remote (e.g., Senior Director, Business Development) while others are hybrid (e.g., Partner Lead in Santiago). - **Notable perks**: Generous training budgets (partner tech certifications, workshops, mentorship), customizable health/dental plans, generous vacation policy, and work-life balance emphasis. - **Engineering culture**: Sharp minds working on meaningful projects with global brands; exposure to cutting-edge Google Cloud AI tools. ## Sources 1. [applydigital.com/careers](https://www.applydigital.com/careers/) 2. [applydigital.com/about-us](https://www.applydigital.com/about-us/) 3. [applydigital.com](https://www.applydigital.com/) 4. [jobs.lever.co/applydigital](https://jobs.lever.co/applydigital) 5. 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