Director, AI Product Engineering

BUILD A BETTER CAREER WITH MSC

Serving customers and our community starts with the best people doing their best work. That is precisely what we have created at MSC Industrial Supply Co. We are a leading North American distributor of metalworking and maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO), products and services. We offer more than 2 million products and have over 80 years of experience across dozens of industries. We aim to execute our Built to Make You Better brand promise for all our stakeholders, including our associates.

Requisition ID : 21824

Employment Type : Full Time

Job Category : Digital/IT

Work Location : Davidson, NC

BRIEF POSITION SUMMARY

The Company is moving from localized AI experiments to a coordinated portfolio of AI products and agentic automation that create competitive advantage and close longstanding gaps in core business systems. The Director, AI Product Engineering leads the in-house build function for this work and is accountable for designing, engineering, releasing, and supporting the AI products, agents, and automations that the business depends on.

This position partners closely with the Director, AI Product Management, who owns the roadmap, use-case portfolio, and build-versus-buy decisions, and with the Director, AI Governance & Operations, who owns the AI inventory, controls, evaluation standards, and production approval. The role also works with Technology, Enterprise Architecture, Data, Cybersecurity, and line-of-business leaders to ensure solutions are well architected, secure, integrated with core systems, and adopted in day-to-day workflows.

The Director, AI Product Engineering is a hands-on, player-coach leader who brings engineering discipline to AI: clear architecture patterns, reusable components, automated evaluation and testing, staged releases, and production observability. This leader shortens the time between identifying a business problem and shipping a working, supportable fix.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead the AI Product Engineering team, including Domain AI Products and Agentic Automation, setting priorities, standards, and delivery cadence aligned with the enterprise business systems and AI roadmap.

• Design, build, and deliver domain AI products for lines of business (e.g., sales, customer service, supply chain, pricing, finance, and associate productivity) that are grounded in documented business requirements and measurable outcomes.

• Build agentic automation and AI-enabled workflows that replace manual, reactive, or periodic processes with proactive, continuous ones, integrating with core systems such as ERP, CRM, eCommerce, and service platforms.

• Own AI solution architecture for in-house builds.

• Lead AI and application engineering practices, including code quality, version control, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, environment management, and secure development standards.

• Own release delivery for AI products and agents, including staged rollouts, release gates, rollback procedures, and change control, in partnership with AI Governance & Operations.

• Build automated evaluation into the engineering lifecycle, including accuracy, safety, and regression testing, prompt and model versioning, and pre-release quality checks.

• Implement LLMOps and production observability, including logging and traceability of agent actions, latency, cost and token usage tracking, drift detection, alerting, and incident runbooks.

• Evaluate and select models, frameworks, and platforms for in-house builds, balancing capability, cost, security, and supportability, and provide technical input on build-versus-buy decisions led by AI Product Management.

• Partner with Cybersecurity, Data, and Enterprise Architecture to ensure solutions meet data protection, data classification, access control, and architecture standards.

• Lead structured, cross-functional build formats (e.g., hackdays pairing business, product, and engineering) to rapidly prototype and validate high-value use cases.

• Ensure solutions are supportable after launch through documentation, knowledge transfer, support models, and clear business ownership.

• Recruit, develop, and coach engineers, building a strong internal capability that reduces unnecessary reliance on external consulting and system integrators.

• Provide engineering estimates, capacity planning, and delivery status reporting to the VP, Business Systems & AI Strategy and business stakeholders.

• Fosters the MSC Culture in the department and throughout the company to ensure fulfillment of MSC s vision and unity of purpose.

• Participation in special projects and performs additional duties as required.

QUALIFICATIONS

What You Need

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related discipline required.

• A minimum of 10 years of progressive software or solutions engineering experience, including at least 3 years leading engineering teams, required.

• A minimum of 2 years of hands-on experience designing and delivering generative AI, LLM, or agentic solutions in production required.

• Strong working knowledge of prompt engineering, function calling, agent frameworks and MCP or similar integration patterns required.

• Experience with major AI and cloud platforms (e.g., Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, Anthropic, OpenAI) and modern application stacks (e.g., Python, TypeScript, APIs, containers) required.

• Experience implementing evaluation, testing, and observability for AI systems preferred.

• Experience integrating AI with enterprise systems such as ERP, CRM (including Salesforce), eCommerce, and service platforms preferred.

• Working knowledge of responsible AI practices, data protection, and secure development standards required.

• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical trade-offs to business and executive audiences required.

Bonus Points If You Have

• Experience delivering AI products and agentic automation solutions from concept to production.

• A track record of using AI to drive measurable business value, productivity, and process improvements.

• Experience building scalable, reusable AI architecture and solutions.

• Knowledge of AI governance, monitoring, evaluation, and production reliability.

• Experience optimizing AI infrastructure and operating costs.

• Success building internal AI capabilities and reducing reliance on external partners.

Other Requirements

• A valid driver s license may be required.

• Position requires up to 25% of travel.

• This position may require access to International Traffic in Arms Regulations Information (ITAR) and/or Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI).

Compensation starting at $146,000 - $229,350 depending on candidate location and experience.

The salary range represented is based on similar roles in comparable industries, and the cost of labor in respective cities. Actual compensation is based on the candidate s relevant experience, education requirements and peer pay equity. The Company reserves the right to modify the range as market conditions change.

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa for this position at this time.

This job posting will remain open for a minimum of 3 business days from the original posting date or longer as needed to fill the position.

WHY MSC?

People. Collaboration. Insight. That s how you build something that works. Built on a foundation of trust, MSC works side by side with our customers to help them drive business results. With more than one million product offerings and 80+ years of experience across industries, MSC strives to help our customers achieve greater productivity, profitability, and growth through inventory management and other innovative supply chain solutions. We care about our associates and have programs in place to help our 6,500+ team members achieve their potential.

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU

Our associates are our top priority and investing in their well-being is one way we execute our Built to Make You Better brand promise. Alongside competitive pay, we have a comprehensive benefits program to support you and your family's health, well-being and financial future. We offer dynamic healthcare plans, generous 401K and stock purchasing programs, tuition reimbursement opportunities, and paid time away for holidays, vacations, and illness. Visit our page for a better look at our extensive benefits: Your Future Benefits. (https://jobs.mscdirect.com/content/Benefits/?locale=en\_US)

You will also have the opportunity to join our Associate Inclusion Circles: Women, Pride, Black, Generational, Veterans, HOLA, and Able. These circles are open to all associates and are designed to promote awareness, collaboration, and respect.

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT

At MSC, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all qualified applicants and our associates without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, sexual orientation or any category protected by applicable law. Accommodation requests can be made at any stage of the recruitment process; applicants are asked to make their needs/requirements known.

Please note that MSC uses electronic monitoring and system logs in its workplace, including monitoring of Company-provided systems and collaboration tools, as permitted by applicable law.