AI/ML Engineering Manager

$104,361.28-$135,669.26 DOE

124

Summer: Mon-Thurs; 7:00 am- 6:00 pm
Non Summer: Mon-Fri; 8:00 am- 5:00 pm

12 months

10 Colleges. Unlimited Opportunities.

The Maricopa County Community College District is one of the largest community college systems in the nation. Home to 10 individually accredited community colleges and 31 satellite locations, we proudly serve students in every corner of the Valley. Each day, our dedicated faculty, staff, and administrators, live out our vision-creating excellence in education for a better world.

We focus on people-not profits. 
With 100% acceptance, zero rejections, and affordable tuition, we provide the flexibility and support our students need to succeed in and beyond the classroom. Discover how we're changing college.

We don't just support our community-we help build it.
We are the largest provider of workforce development training in the state. The activities of our colleges and their students support one out of every 28 jobs in Maricopa County. Learn about our economic impact. 

We believe our employees are our most valuable asset.
Our 10 colleges and District Office support nearly 10,000 jobs and careers throughout Greater Phoenix.

Join us in making a real difference in the lives of over 140,000 college students each year.

Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) is committed to providing a competitive and comprehensive benefits program that supports our employees' and their families' health and well-being. Therefore, the MCCCD benefits support every stage of life and are designed to meet the diverse needs of our community. Explore the wide range of benefits and perks available to eligible employees at MCCCD:

Affordable and Comprehensive Benefits Package:

• Nationwide Medical, Dental, and Vision Coverage
• Paid Time Off: Vacation, Sick Leave, and Personal Time
• 20 Paid Observed Holidays
• Company-paid Life Insurance, AD&D, and Short-Term Disability plans, with the option to purchase supplemental coverage
• Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS) Pension, including Long Term Disability and Retiree Health Insurance with 100% employer-matching contributions
• Optional Retirement Plans: 403(b), 457(b), Roth 403(b), Roth 457(b)
• Tuition Reimbursement for employees and dependents
• Annual Professional Development Funding
• Flexible Work Schedules

Employee Health & Wellness Programs:

• District-Wide Wellness Program with Workshops and Webinars
• Monthly Health & Wellness Calendar and Newsletter
• Virta Diabetes Reversal Program and Support Groups
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

• Sight-On-Site Eye Care Services

• Pre-Retirement Planning Events
• Qualifying Employer for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (potential loan forgiveness for federal Direct Loans after meeting repayment requirements and working full-time for an eligible employer) 

Information Technology Services (ITS) at the MCCCD is looking for a highly skilled and hands-on Manager of AI/ML Engineering, to serve as both a technical leader and people manager for the District's AI/ML engineering function. This role is responsible for designing, deploying, scaling, and supporting production-ready AI and machine learning solutions that advance student success, operational efficiency, workforce readiness, institutional effectiveness, and responsible AI adoption across the District.

This position combines technical depth, engineering leadership, and team management. The Manager of AI/ML Engineering, will lead a team of AI/ML engineers, developers, analysts, and related technical staff while remaining actively involved in solution architecture, model deployment, AI application integration, workflow orchestration, and operational support. The role will work closely with data engineering, architecture, governance, cybersecurity, analytics, and business stakeholders across academic, student, administrative, and operational domains.

The ideal candidate is a strong technical builder and practical leader who can establish engineering standards, mentor team members, and deliver scalable, secure, and reliable AI solutions in a complex enterprise environment.

20% - AI/ML Engineering and Solution Delivery
Design, build, test, deploy, and maintain enterprise AI and machine learning solutions that support reporting, automation, decision support, intelligent search, workflow optimization, and user productivity.
Operationalize predictive models, natural language processing solutions, retrieval-based systems, recommendation workflows, classification services, and generative AI-enabled applications.
Build reusable AI/ML engineering patterns, services, and components to improve scalability, consistency, and speed of delivery.
Integrate AI/ML capabilities with enterprise data platforms, business applications, APIs, and workflow systems.
Support both real-time and batch-based inference and processing patterns as appropriate.

20% - Cloud and Platform Engineering
Build and maintain AI/ML solutions using AWS as the primary cloud platform.
Develop and support workflows using AWS services such as SageMaker, S3, Lambda, Bedrock, IAM, CloudWatch, Step Functions, API Gateway, ECS/EKS, and related technologies as appropriate.
Apply best practices for performance optimization, monitoring, logging, access control, resilience, model lifecycle management, and cost awareness in AWS-based environments.
Support modernization of manual, rule-based, or legacy workflows into scalable AI-enabled services.

20% - Governance, Security, and Responsible AI
Ensure AI/ML solutions comply with District governance, privacy, security, and access-control requirements.
Support responsible AI practices by incorporating guardrails, human review, prompt controls, output monitoring, and safe handling of sensitive data.
Work closely with governance, legal, compliance, and cybersecurity stakeholders to align AI implementations with District policy and institutional expectations.
Contribute to trustworthy and well-governed AI adoption that supports institutional decision-making and operational efficiency.

20% - Team Leadership and People Management
Supervise, mentor, and develop AI/ML engineers, AI developers, or related technical staff.
Assign work, establish priorities, provide technical coaching, and support employee development.
Conduct code reviews, design reviews, model/solution reviews, and technical guidance to ensure quality and consistency across the team.
Build a high-performing engineering culture focused on accountability, experimentation, responsible AI use, documentation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Help identify staffing, skill development, tooling, and process needs for a growing AI engineering function.

10% - Production Reliability and Operational Excellence
Establish and enforce standards for development, testing, deployment, release management, monitoring, documentation, and supportability of AI/ML systems.
Improve engineering practices related to CI/CD, MLOps, LLMOps, versioning, observability, model evaluation, prompt/version control, and issue resolution.
Ensure AI solutions include appropriate controls for output quality, traceability, auditability, human oversight, and operational support.
Lead troubleshooting of model failures, workflow breakdowns, hallucination or output quality issues, prompt regressions, latency bottlenecks, and production incidents, and drive root-cause resolution.

10% - Cross-Functional Collaboration
Partner with data architects, data engineers, governance leaders, analysts, institutional research teams, application teams, and business stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable AI solutions.
Work with technical and functional teams to identify and prioritize high-value use cases and implementation opportunities.
Participate in roadmap planning, solution estimation, prioritization, vendor/tool evaluation, and technical design discussions.
Communicate technical tradeoffs, risks, and implementation approaches clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Performs related duties as assigned

Bachelor's Degree from a regionally accredited institution in computer science, data science, software engineering, information systems, artificial intelligence, mathematics, statistics, or a related field, and six (6) years of progressively responsible experience in AI engineering, machine learning engineering, software engineering, and data engineering. Experience must include three (3) years of deploying AI/ML solutions in cloud-based environments, and two (2) years of leading projects, mentoring technical staff or teams supporting enterprise AI solutions in a production environment.

OR

An equivalent combination of the conferred degree, education, certification and directly related full-time work experience as described above sufficient to successfully perform the essential duties of the job such as those listed above, unless otherwise subject to any other requirements set forth in law or regulation, may be considered.

AND

AWS Certified Machine Learning; AWS Certified Solutions Architect; AI/ML frameworks, data science, or advanced analytics certifications

1. Master's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related discipline.
2. Experience performing a similar role in higher education, public sector, healthcare, or other complex multi-stakeholder environments.
3. Experience with generative AI, large language model applications, retrieval-augmented generation, vector search, intelligent automation, or decision-support workflows.
4. Experience collaborating with data engineering, governance, architecture, analytics, and cybersecurity teams.
5. Experience implementing responsible AI controls and model/service monitoring.
6. Experience modernizing manual or legacy processes into AI-enabled services or intelligent workflows.

There is a minimum in-office requirement.
The selected candidate will need to reside in the Phoenix area or relocate within an agreed upon timeframe.
This role may involve after hours work and non-regular business hours.
May be required to sit for a prolonged period of time; viewing a computer monitor.
May be required to present in large meetings and sponsored events
ITS does not sponsor individuals for any type of work visas

Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit a cover letter that details how the applicant meets the minimum and desired qualifications.  A cover letter may further highlight an applicant's knowledge, skill and abilities.  All minimum requirements must be met at the time of the application.

Additional materials will not be accepted after the job posting has closed.

Missing materials or incomplete employment history will not be considered. 

Please ensure your materials clearly provide the following information.

• Clearly illustrate how prior experience, knowledge and education meet the minimum and desired qualifications for this position.
• Indicate whether former or current employment is Full-Time or;
• Part-Time employment (must include number of hours worked) 
• Provide employment history in a month/year format (e.g., 09/07 to 10/11) including job title, job duties, for each position held and name of employer for each position.
• Three professional references, preferably current and/or former supervisors. If references are not provided in resume upon application, they will be requested at time of interview.

Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. Qualified applicants or candidates with disabilities can submit a reasonable accommodation request at any point in the hiring process, and MCCCD's policy is to provide reasonable accommodation unless such accommodation would cause an undue hardship.  If a reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact the ADA Coordinator from the hiring campus location for assistance via email at adasupport@domail.maricopa.edu

MCCCD is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

First review October 26, 2026

Applications received after first review date may not be reviewed

Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) will not discriminate, nor tolerate discrimination in employment or education, against any applicant, employee, or student because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship status (including document abuse), age, disability, veteran status or genetic information.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

The policy of the MCCCD is to provide an educational, employment, and business environment free of gender discrimination. Incidents of misconduct should be reported to the college Title IX Coordinator, as outlined in policy, contact information is available at this link Title IX Coordinators.

The Clery Act is a Federal law requiring United States Colleges and Universities to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses.  Crime reporting data for each of the Maricopa Community Colleges, as required under the Clery Act, is available at this link Clery Act.