Senior Principal AI/ML Developer

Responsibilities

• Set the Applied AI Strategy – Define and drive the vision, roadmap, and investment priorities for key data science and machine learning capabilities across Autodesk’s B2C business, including personalization, recommendation systems, segmentation, forecasting, experimentation, churn prediction, product analytics, and customer insights.

• Lead a Portfolio of High-Impact Initiatives – Own multiple complex, cross-functional AI/ML programs from strategy through production and business adoption. Establish clear priorities, success metrics, operating rhythms, and accountability to ensure the team delivers measurable customer and business outcomes.

• Build and Develop a High-Performing Team – Provide leadership, coaching, and career development for Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers. Create an environment that attracts strong technical talent, raises the bar for execution, and enables individuals to grow in both technical depth and leadership.

• Provide Technical Leadership – Establish technical direction and engineering standards for machine learning systems, model development, experimentation, evaluation, production deployment, and MLOps. Guide teams through complex technical decisions while ensuring solutions are scalable, maintainable, and aligned with Autodesk’s broader technology architecture.

• Expand Autodesk’s ML Capabilities – Identify emerging opportunities where AI and machine learning can materially improve the customer experience or business performance. Guide the design and development of scalable end-to-end ML platforms and pipelines that enable personalization and intelligent decision-making at scale.

• Drive Experimentation at Scale – Establish robust experimentation and measurement practices that increase development velocity while maintaining scientific rigor. Enable teams to rapidly test hypotheses, evaluate model performance, quantify incremental impact, and translate learnings into product and business decisions.

• Influence Senior Leadership – Serve as a trusted thought partner to senior leaders across Product, Engineering, eCommerce, Marketing, Finance, and other functions. Frame ambiguous business problems, identify opportunities where AI can create value, recommend investment priorities, and influence strategic decisions through data.

• Drive Cross-Functional Execution – Initiate and lead large-scale, complex strategic initiatives spanning multiple teams and organizations. Build alignment across technical and business stakeholders, resolve ambiguity and competing priorities, and drive programs through execution and adoption.

• Champion a Data- and AI-Driven Culture – Evangelize best practices in applied AI, machine learning, experimentation, and evidence-based decision-making. Help shape Autodesk’s broader approach to responsible, scalable, and business-oriented use of AI.

• Translate Technology into Business Impact – Develop compelling narratives that connect data, model performance, customer behavior, and financial outcomes. Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to executive, business, and technical audiences and ensure AI investments are tied to measurable impact.

• Raise the Organizational Bar – Establish reusable frameworks, processes, and best practices that improve how Applied AI teams prioritize work, evaluate opportunities, design solutions, and measure results. Foster collaboration and knowledge sharing across Data Science, ML Engineering, and adjacent technical organizations.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering, or another related quantitative or technical field.

• 10+ years of experience in Data Science, Machine Learning, Applied Research, or a related technical discipline, with significant experience delivering production-scale machine learning solutions.

• Demonstrated experience leading teams, technical organizations, or major cross-functional programs, including setting strategy, establishing priorities, and driving execution across multiple simultaneous initiatives.

• Experience developing technical talent through coaching, mentorship, technical leadership, performance management, or people management.

• Proven ability to lead technical strategy, machine learning system design, and optimization of production-scale ML infrastructure, including model deployment, model evaluation, data processing, monitoring, debugging, and model optimization.

• 7+ years of experience with software or machine learning system design and architecture, including launching and operating production systems.

• Deep hands-on experience with machine learning, data mining, information retrieval, recommendation or personalization systems, and applied statistical methods.

• Strong expertise in A/B testing, experimental design, causal reasoning, and measurement.

• Strong understanding of statistics, probability, customer and product analytics, and financial or business modeling.

• Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous business challenges into data and AI strategies and connect technical investments to measurable customer and business impact.

• Exceptional communication and stakeholder-management skills, with demonstrated ability to influence senior technical and business leaders.

Preferred Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, Machine Learning, Engineering, or another quantitative discipline.

• 15+ years of experience in machine learning, data science, or related disciplines, ideally including experience in eCommerce, personalization, growth, digital products, or consumer-facing platforms. 

• 5+ years of experience in technical or people leadership, including building and developing high-performing Data Science and/or Machine Learning Engineering teams.

• Experience defining multi-year AI/ML strategies and translating them into organizational roadmaps, investment priorities, and measurable business outcomes.

• Experience hiring, developing, and retaining senior Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, and technical leaders.

• Experience operating effectively in a matrixed environment and influencing senior executives across Product, Engineering, Marketing, Finance, and business organizations.

• Hands-on experience with cloud machine learning platforms such as AWS or Azure and strong knowledge of modern MLOps, model governance, observability, and production ML best practices.

• Experience building personalization, recommendation, ranking, forecasting, customer lifecycle, or next-best-action systems at significant scale.

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At Autodesk, we are building a diverse workplace and an inclusive culture to give more people the chance to imagine, design, and make a better world. Autodesk is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic. We also consider for employment all qualified applicants