Director Engineering - AI Acquisition Solutions

Zeta Global

Zeta Global

Software Engineering, Data Science
San Francisco, CA, USA
USD 225k-300k / year + Equity
Posted on Aug 28, 2025

WHO WE ARE

Zeta Global (NYSE: ZETA) is the AI-Powered Marketing Cloud that leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and trillions of consumer signals to make it easier for marketers to acquire, grow, and retain customers more efficiently. Through the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP), our vision is to make sophisticated marketing simple by unifying identity, intelligence, and omnichannel activation into a single platform – powered by one of the industry’s largest proprietary databases and AI. Our enterprise customers across multiple verticals are empowered to personalize experiences with consumers at an individual level across every channel, delivering better results for marketing programs. Zeta was founded in 2007 by David A. Steinberg and John Sculley and is headquartered in New York City with offices around the world. To learn more, go to www.zetaglobal.com.

Zeta is on a mission to redefine how brands and agencies plan, activate, and measure media using the power of AI and real-time data. As we expand our platform capabilities, we're building purpose-built applications that bring intelligence, automation, and closed-loop performance to the heart of customer acquisition strategies.

About the Role

We are looking for a hands-on, entrepreneurial Director of Engineering to lead the development of next-generation AI-powered applications. This leader will thrive on building and owning a full stack solution and play a pivotal role in platforming agencies and acquisition buyers, combining advanced modeling, intelligent automation, and real-time data pipelines to transform how marketing decisions are made and optimized.

This role is ideal for a technical leader who thrives in fast-paced environments, has a passion for building AI-first applications, and wants to shape the future of media intelligence. You will work across the stack - building UI experiences, defining new APIs, integrating AI agents, refining GenUI components, and extending platform capabilities like new MCP endpoints.

What You'll Build

You’ll lead engineering efforts across a portfolio of solutions, including:

  1. AI-powered, forecasted marketing intelligence tools that guide strategic decision-making.
  2. Robust connections to the programmatic ecosystem to enable precise, audience-based activation and measurement.
  3. Connected tools/workflows that plan, bid, and optimize media plans against digital KPIs and real-world outcomes.
  4. Comprehensive attribution and measurement capabilities across the entire marketing landscape.
  5. Intelligent apps that use modeling pipelines and proprietary Data Cloud insights to drive new customer acquisition at scale.
  6. Intuitive workflows and cross-app connections that improve the user journey, ensuring users can move effortlessly between discovery, planning, activation, and measurement.

Key Responsibilities

  • Lead and scale a team of 8-12 engineers to deliver high-quality, production-grade applications.
  • Be a hands-on contributor - from architecture to code reviews, setting technical direction and building prototypes when needed.
  • Collaborate with Product, Data Science, and GTM teams to align roadmap with strategic business outcomes.
  • Integrate AI/ML models into applications, working closely with platform and modeling teams to operationalize intelligence.
  • Define and implement best practices in performance, observability, and cost-efficient design.
  • Foster a culture of innovation, velocity, and ownership within your team.

Qualifications

  • 15+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles.
  • Proven success building and delivering data-driven or AI-powered applications at scale.
  • Demonstrated passion and experience using AI tooling (e.g., GitHub Copilot, AI code generation, intelligent QA, and dev automation tools) to improve development velocity, code quality, and team productivity.
  • Experience working in or adjacent to ad tech, marketing tech, or data platforms is strongly preferred.
  • Deep understanding of modern cloud infrastructure, data modeling, and event-driven architectures.
  • Hands-on technical depth in backend systems, APIs, AI/ML pipelines, or full-stack development.
  • Entrepreneurial mindset, proactive, fast-moving, and unafraid to operate outside job boundaries to get things done. Ability to thrive in ambiguous environments, set clear goals, and inspire teams to execute.
  • Strong collaboration and communication skills across technical and business stakeholders.

BENEFITS & PERKS

  • Unlimited PTO
  • Excellent medical, dental, and vision coverage
  • Employee Equity
  • Employee Discounts, Virtual Wellness Classes, and Pet Insurance And more!!

SALARY RANGE

The compensation range for this role is $225,000-$300,000, depending on location and experience.

PEOPLE & CULTURE AT ZETA

Zeta considers applicants for employment without regard to, and does not discriminate on the basis of an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Zeta discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

We’re committed to building a workplace culture of trust and belonging, so everyone feels invited to bring their whole selves to work. We provide a forum for employees to celebrate, support and advocate for one another. Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion here: https://zetaglobal.com/blog/a-look-into-zetas-ergs/

ZETA IN THE NEWS!

https://zetaglobal.com/press/?cat=press-releases

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