Director - AI

Role Purpose At Coats Digital, we build SaaS applications for the fashion industry, helping brands and manufacturers with planning, costing, and optimising their operations. AI is central to the next generation of our products. As Director, Software Engineering (AI), you will own the AI and machine learning portfolio for Coats Digital — leading the development of new AI-powered products and driving the integration of AI capabilities into our existing SaaS applications. You will manage a team of engineers and testers, with a mandate to grow the function by building out specialist AI/ML roles as the portfolio matures. This role combines strategic leadership with technical depth. You will define Coats Digital’s AI roadmap, make build-vs-buy decisions on AI technologies, and work hands-on enough to prototype, evaluate approaches, and set technical direction. Today, the focus is on LLM integrations using services such as Azure OpenAI; over time, you will build the team’s capabilities in classical machine learning — including custom model development for domain-specific problems in the apparel industry. You will collaborate closely with the other Software Engineering Directors, embedding AI features into their product portfolios while delivering your own. People Management Responsibility (direct / indirect reports) 5 (scaling to ~10) Indicate the number of people managed in total ☒ Matrix Manager – (projects/dotted line) ☒ Manager of a team ☐ Teams Manager (manager of multiple teams) Key Relationships (For new roles or where reporting relationships have change, please attach an organisation chart) Internal (excluding direct team and manager) External Software Engineering Directors Development Teams Product Managers Scrum Masters Quality Assurance Team DevOps AI/ML Vendors and Research Partners Cloud AI Teams (e.g. Azure AI, OpenAI) Security Auditors Data Governance Functions Education, Qualifications and Experience (Include skills and competencies required to perform the role competently) Essential Desirable 8+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 years in a leadership role managing engineering teams. Proven experience delivering AI/ML-powered products or features into production. Strong understanding of large language models, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation and LLM integration patterns. Familiarity with classical machine learning techniques and when to apply them (e.g. supervised learning, time-series forecasting, classification). Experience evaluating and adopting cloud AI services (e.g. Azure OpenAI, Azure Machine Learning). Demonstrated ability to define and drive technical strategy across a product portfolio. Strong stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to influence across business functions. Experience building and growing engineering teams, including hiring for specialist roles. Excellent communication skills, able to articulate AI concepts to non-technical audiences. Experience with MLOps practices — model versioning, monitoring, retraining pipelines. Familiarity with data engineering and data pipeline design. Experience with .NET and/or modern web application stacks. Azure certifications (e.g. Azure AI Engineer Associate, Azure Solutions Architect Expert). Fashion industry or manufacturing experience. Experience working with distributed or remote engineering teams. Knowledge of supply chain concepts — such as demand planning, production scheduling, procurement, or inventory optimization — whether from garment, apparel, or any other manufacturing or retail context. Candidates who can connect AI solutions to supply chain problems will stand out. Apply To This Job