{"id":1715897,"url":"https://alion.io/job/carmax-director-aiml-engineering","title":"Director, AI/ML Engineering","company":{"id":1759292,"name":"CarMax","domain":"carmax.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/carmax-com","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Richmond, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":181400,"max":290200,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":290200},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Computer Vision","optional":false},{"name":"LLM Guardrails","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Multimodal AI","optional":false},{"name":"Agile","optional":true},{"name":"Anthropic","optional":true},{"name":"AutoGen","optional":true},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"AWS Bedrock","optional":true},{"name":"Azure","optional":true},{"name":"LangChain","optional":true},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-24T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-24","last_verified_at":"2026-10-11T00:03:55Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":17,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":17},"description":"8116 - Midtown Office - 2220 W. Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia, 23220CarMax, the way your career should be!\nDirector, AI/ML Engineering\nAbout this job\nCarMax is looking for a Director, AI/ML Engineering to lead and scale our artificial intelligence, and ML capabilities. The AI/ML Engineering team is the engineering arm powering next-generation AI solutions - including agentic AI systems, generative AI applications, and intelligent automation workflows - as well as core machine learning models such as vehicle pricing, personalized recommender on carmax.com, ad-bidding, and computer vision. This role is critical for our data and AI organization that provides scalable, reliable, and real-time models for best customer and associate experience.\nWe are looking for highly motivated individuals comfortable in a dynamic environment, experience leading 50+ member teams (comprised of FTEs & contractors), and with a solid track record in AI engineering, generative AI, agentic systems, and Machine Learning technology and platform.\nThe role requires ability to step into multiple roles ranging from technical product manager, team mentor, and technical architect. This position is ideal for individuals with high accountability, developing future leaders, strong analytical skills, financial skills, great communication style, a partnership mentality, and comfort turning facts into recommendations. The individual must be able to influence cross-functional business partners and effectively provide the Technology point-of-view on complex business issues to senior management, team members, and partners.\nKey Role Responsibilities\nAs a Director for AI/ML Engineering, you will:\nEstablish a technology vision and strategy for AI engineering - spanning agentic AI, generative AI, AI workflow automation, machine learning engineering, platform, and services, focusing on business outcomes tracked via key metrics, including overall financial management\nDefine and execute a roadmap for Agentic AI systems - autonomous, multi-step AI agents that take action on behalf of customers and associates - integrating with existing ML and data science platforms\nLead the adoption of generative AI technologies (including large language models and multimodal AI) to create differentiated customer experiences, associate tools, and internal productivity solutions\nArchitect and govern AI workflow and automation pipelines that connect generative AI, agentic components, and traditional ML models into end-to-end intelligent business processes\nLead and develop a 40+ member team (FTEs & contractors) responsible for feature engineering, agentic AI development, generative AI engineering, ML engineering, automation, and ML Ops for data science models\nPartner with Technology and Product leadership to define, drive, and deliver our AI/ML services to power the brand's omni-channel front-end experiences (website, mobile apps, in-store experience)\nClosely collaborate with data science and leadership to identify solutions, prioritize the roadmap and ensure delivery commitments\nFoster a product engineering culture within the team and establish best practices around discovery, prototyping, continuous and rapid testing, and learning, with a relentless focus on delivering customer value\nEstablish responsible AI governance practices, including safety, bias mitigation, explainability, and compliance guardrails for generative and agentic AI systems\nCollaborate with other Product Managers and Architects on the design and integration with other products and/or technology platforms\nCollaborate with other key stakeholders (e.g., legal, security, etc.) to ensure product features meet all security and privacy requirements - with particular attention to data governance and safety requirements for generative AI and agentic systems\nPartner with Reliability Engineering team to ensure proper controls have been implemented for proactive monitoring of critical product features, availability, and stability\nQualifications and Requirements\nProven technology leader with experience building and managing highly engaged teams\nPassionate about AI engineering - including agentic AI, generative AI, and AI automation - as well as Data Science and Machine Learning engineering\nPersuasive communicator - able to explain complex or intangible concepts to stakeholders at all levels\nGood listener - weighs input from multiple perspectives when forming opinions and recommendations\nCollaborative and team-oriented work approach\nExperience gaining consensus among a large, diverse group of stakeholders\nExperience managing, training and mentoring others in Engineering methodologies and best practices\nAble to easily motivate and inspire team members, peers, stakeholders and executives\nInnovative; thinks beyond boundaries\nAnalytical; solves problems at root cause and prioritizes effectively\nContinuous improvement mentality; never satisfied\nComfortable speaking to large audiences and executives\nFlexible and open-minded; proactively seeks input from others\nEntrepreneurial drive and spirit; enjoys working in a fast-paced environment\nHandles constructive criticism with ease; adapts easily and efficiently to change\nEducation and/or Experience\nBA/BS Degree required. Master's Degree a plus.\n10+ years' experience in AI engineering, generative AI, or Data Science/Machine Learning or related engineering field. Experience with large language models (LLMs), agentic AI frameworks, and AI automation platforms is highly preferred. ML Ops experience is a plus.\n5+ years' experience managing direct reports\nExperience with lean/agile development processes\nHands-on familiarity with generative AI tools and platforms (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI) and agentic frameworks (e.g., LangChain, AutoGen, or similar)\nExperience designing and deploying AI workflow automation solutions integrating LLMs, APIs, and traditional ML models into cohesive business processes\nWork Location and Arrangement: This role can be based out of the CarMax Home Office in Richmond, VA or the Dallas Technology Hub in Plano, TX and Associates will work onsite 4 days per week. \nWork Authorization: Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Sponsorship will not be considered for this specific role.\nAbout CarMax\nCarMax disrupted the auto industry by delivering the honest, transparent and high-integrity experience customers want and deserve. This innovative thinking around the way cars are bought and sold has helped us become the nation’s largest retailer of used cars, with over 250 locations nationwide.\nOur amazing team of more than 25,000 associates work together to deliver iconic customer experiences. Along the way, we help every associate grow their career and achieve their best, at work and in their community. We are recognized for our commitment to training and diversity and are one of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For®.\nOur Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion: \nCarMax is committed to bringing together people from different backgrounds and perspectives, providing employees with a safe, welcoming, and inclusive work environment.\nCarMax is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law.\nThe annual salary for this position is:\n$181,400.00 - $290,200.00May be eligible for bonus and equity.\nBenefits:\nExcept as otherwise required by state law, CarMax Associates are entitled to the following paid sick, vacation, and holiday time.\nAssociates that are considered full-time hourly or commission/incentive eligible:\nTo earn up to 48 hours of sick time per year accrued on a per pay period basis and between 80 hours and 200 hours per year of vacation time after a 90 day waiting period depending on years of continuous service with the Company. \nFor 8 hours of pay for each of a total of 6 paid scheduled holidays per year plus 1 floating holiday. If such an Associate does work on a scheduled holiday due to business need, they are eligible for Holiday Premium Pay. \nAssociates considered full-time salaried are entitled to paid time away with no specified limit as needed for sick, vacation, bereavement, jury duty, holidays, floating holiday, etc. subject to manager approval.\nFor more details about benefits, please visit our CarMax Benefits website.\nUpon an applicant's request, CarMax will consider reasonable accommodation to complete the CarMax Job Application.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8688,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Home office"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[{"name":"Central African Republic","iso":"CF"}],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-02T18:35:24Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":74,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.817,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":16,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","win:mid","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-10T05:45:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":290200,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/carmax-director-aiml-engineering","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/carmax-director-aiml-engineering.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-11T05:06:14Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4573,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":427,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1759292},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1759292"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcarmax-director-aiml-engineering"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcarmax-director-aiml-engineering"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcarmax-director-aiml-engineering"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/carmax-director-aiml-engineering\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcarmax-director-aiml-engineering"}]}