Senior Applied AI Specialist

About the Job: LaunchDarkly’s Senior Applied AI Specialist will be at the forefront of revolutionizing how AI engineers think about, release, monitor, and optimize their agents, scaling up our AgentControl from initial market validation and product relaunch to an industry-leading product. You will represent deep, specialized AgentControl product knowledge , sharing your expertise with prospects and customers, gathering critical feedback that shapes product development, and driving early-stage adoption. Your expertise will be instrumental in establishing the Solutions Engineering frameworks that will guide our future success. This is a role for builders and storytellers who thrive in undefined spaces. You will be expected to build – meaning the construction of integrations, technical content, whitepapers, and tutorials, all alongside attractive demos of our product customized to strategic engagements. You'll work with the innovation coming out of LaunchDarkly's Product team and make a significant impact on how companies build and deploy AI applications. Responsibilities: Expert-Level Solutions/Sales Engineering Bring serious, credible expertise in practical AI applications to customer conversations. Spearhead the early-stage evaluation, implementation, and adoption of AgentControl at scale, working closely with existing customers to ensure activation and churn prevention (alongside feedback). Partner with the AI SME team to develop and document Solutions Engineering playbooks and best practices that scale beyond our early customers. Partner closely with the AI Strategy Lead and AI SME team surfacing revenue-related insights as the product is deployed. Lead AgentControl POVs to validate technical win and secure revenue from our largest customers. Collect and Propagate Product Feedback Collaborate extensively with product and engineering teams to ensure product concepts are technically feasible and align with LaunchDarkly's strategic goals. Drive continuous improvement by monitoring product performance, user experience, and market response, iterating based on actionable data and insights. Ensure AgentControl's roadmap tracks market demand and delivers an exceptional experience for the AI developer persona. Scale the AgentControl Business Deliver integrations against common, quantified customer requests in the form of code contributions, architecture diagrams, and whitepapers Function as a key technical asset in technical partnerships with advantageous potential partners (like Anthropic, DataBricks, etc…) Publicly evangelize AgentControl at mainstream industry conferences, webinars, partner engagements, and strategic meetings Technical Leadership & Communication Partner with LaunchDarkly’s AI SE SME team to support broader organization enablement on AI and the AgentControl product. Support Field Team Enablement of AgentControl. Work with the AI Researcher, the PMM team, and the AI Strategy Lead to build and maintain competitor playbooks. Qualifications: AI & Technical Expertise Extensive experience with AI applications including building, implementing, or selling AI solutions at scale Experience building multi-agent systems using frameworks like LangGraph, AgentBuilder, or AgentCore Hands-on experience evaluating AI agent performance at scale using automated evaluation methods Deep understanding of LLM mechanics (you've read 'Attention is All You Need' and can explain transformer architecture in detail) Experience building or interfacing with MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers Strong Python skills with experience building in PyTorch or TensorFlow Strong foundation in software engineering principles and current market trends Typically requires a minimum of 12 years of related experience Mindset & Approach Strong but loosely-held opinions about AI—you have a point of view but update it based on evidence Ability to anticipate where the AI landscape is heading and position products accordingly Deep curiosity about how AI changes software development, with an obsession for staying current on new AI technology Natural storyteller who can take new technology and craft compelling narratives that resonate with technical audiences Thrive in ambiguity—you love figuring it out, building new processes, and working in undefined spaces How This Role Connects The Senior Applied AI Specialist operates within LaunchDarkly's broader AI organization: You report through the AgentControl Specialist POD organization while maintaining a dotted-line relationship to the SE team. You collaborate closely with the AI Researcher, translating their strategic insights into customer-facing conversations and surfacing field intelligence that informs research priorities You coordinate with other AI SMEs across the SE organization to build collective expertise How You'll Be Measured NNARR of AgentControl Activation - usage in terms of both volume (#AIC, #Evals) and breadth (#AI Experiments, #AI Guarded Releases) Quality of customer feedback integrated into product development Effectiveness of Solutions Engineering playbooks and documentation (# of enablement sessions / internal engagement (e.g. views), impact on conversion rate). Successful early-stage implementations and measurable customer impact Contribution to product-market fit through customer insights and technical validation Pay: Target pay ranges based on Geographic Zones* for Level 4: Zone 1: San Francisco/Bay Area or NYC Metropolitan Area, Boston, Seattle - $214,800 - $295,350* Zone 2: Irvine, LA, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Austin, Portland, Philadelphia, Chicago - $193,400 - $265,870 ** Zone 3: All other US locations - $182,600 - $251,0202 * LaunchDarkly operates from a place of high trust and transparency; we are happy to state the pay range for our open roles to best align with your needs. Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location. *Within the United States, our geographic pay zones are defined by counties surrounding major metropolitan areas. **Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), health, vision, and dental insurance, and mental health benefits in addition to salary. About LaunchDarkly: Modern software delivery was supposed to be the foundation for a thriving digital business but reality has proven otherwise. Slow, inefficient development cycles, costly outages, and fragmented customer experiences are preventing developers from building their best software. The LaunchDarkly platform helps developers innovate on new features faster while protecting them with a safety valve to instantly rewind when things go wrong. Developers can target product experiences to any customer segment and maximize the business impact of every feature. And by gradually rolling out new application components, they escape nightmare "big-bang" technology migrations. The LaunchDarkly platform was built to guide engineers to the next frontier of DevOps by: Improving the velocity and stability of software releases, without the fear of end customer outages Delivering targeted experiences by easily personalizing features to customer cohorts Maximizing the business impact of every feature through the ability to experiment and optimize Coordinating the release and optimization of software to provide consistent experiences across mobile platforms and device types Improving the effectiveness and productivity of engineering teams, by providing insights into engineering cadence and stability At LaunchDarkly, we believe in the power of teams. We're building a team that is humble, open, collaborative, respectful and kind. We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. LD invites any applicant to review our written Affirmative Action Plan. To do so, contact People Ops at hr@launchdarkly.com . Do you need a disability accommod