Senior Director, Engineering - AI Studio (CX & EX)

Job description

At Freshworks, we are building the future of customer and employee engagement - and AI agents are at the center of it. The AI Agent Platform is the foundation on which our next generation of autonomous and assistive experiences are built. AI Studio is the product surface that brings that platform to life: the place where builders design, test, deploy, observe, and continuously optimize AI agents that ship inside our CX and EX products. We are looking for a visionary engineering leader to own AI Studio end to end. As the Senior Director of Engineering for AI Studio, you will lead a dynamic, multi-disciplinary organization that builds the front-end experience and the Backend-for-Frontend (BFF) layer for the AI Agent Platform, and embeds these capabilities natively within our CX and EX product lines. This is a pivotal, high-visibility role with the opportunity to shape how thousands of businesses build and operate AI agents - setting the bar for craftsmanship, developer experience, reliability, and scale. Key Responsibilities Lead a dynamic, multi-disciplinary organization of engineers and engineering managers spanning front-end, BFF/services, and platform integration. Own the vision and technical execution for AI Studio - the end-to-end experience to build, test, deploy, observe, and optimize AI agents on the AI Agent Platform. Deliver a best-in-class front end and a robust Backend-for-Frontend (BFF) layer that expose the AI Agent Platform’s capabilities to builders with speed, trust, and clarity. Embed AI Studio natively within both CX and EX product lines, ensuring a seamless, consistent builder and end-user experience across surfaces. Establish the agent lifecycle as a first-class product: authoring and configuration, testing and evaluation, safe deployment, live observability, and data-driven optimization. Partner deeply with the AI Agent Platform, AI/ML, and Data Science teams to surface state-of-the-art models, tools, and orchestration capabilities through intuitive workflows. Define and track impact: agent build velocity, time-to-deploy, adoption, agent quality and containment/deflection, reliability, and measurable ROI for CX and EX customers. Establish governance and trust: access controls, guardrails, data classification, privacy/PII handling, auditability, and compliance-ready practices for agent workflows. What You’ll Do Set the AI Studio vision: Define the strategy, roadmap, and operating model for a unified studio experience that lets builders create, test, deploy, observe, and optimize AI agents across CX and EX. Own the full builder journey: Ship the front-end and BFF that make agent authoring, configuration, and iteration fast, intuitive, and reliable - from first prototype to production at scale. Deliver testing & evaluation: Build the tooling for agent testing, simulation, and evaluation (quality, safety, regression) so teams ship agents with confidence and measurable quality bars. Enable safe, scalable deployment: Provide deployment, versioning, and rollout controls that let teams promote agents across environments with strong guardrails and zero-downtime expectations. Build observability & optimization: Deliver real-time monitoring, tracing, and analytics for live agents - surfacing quality, latency, cost, and outcome signals - and close the loop so insights drive continuous optimization. Embed across CX & EX: Ensure AI Studio integrates natively into Freshworks CX and EX products, delivering a consistent experience while respecting the needs of each product line. Lead & inspire: Cultivate a high-performance, inclusive culture across a multi-tiered organization of engineers and managers. Mentor the next generation of technical leaders and build a team known for technical excellence and execution velocity. Execute with excellence: Master the full development lifecycle, from strategic planning and roadmap management to deployment and operations. Champion agile, iterative delivery to ship exceptional products under ambitious deadlines and evolving priorities. Drive technical & architectural strategy: Act as the technical authority for AI Studio. Guide teams in building large-scale, distributed cloud systems, performant front-end architectures, and resilient BFF/API layers, adopting best practices and emerging AI technologies. Collaborate to win: Build powerful partnerships with AI Agent Platform, AI/ML, Product, Design, and GTM leaders so the AI Studio roadmap is aligned with platform capabilities, business needs, and customer expectations. Foster a “one team” mindset. Champion innovation & quality: Foster continuous improvement and out-of-the-box thinking. Establish and track KPIs that measure AI Studio health, reliability, builder productivity, and business impact. What You’ll Bring A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, with a proven track record of at least 5 years in a senior leadership role (Director or above) leading product-facing platform, developer-tooling, or application engineering teams. Demonstrable experience building, scaling, and leading high-performing product and engineering organizations in an enterprise SaaS environment. Strong technical foundation in building and operating large-scale, distributed systems on public cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP), including modern front-end architectures and Backend-for-Frontend (BFF)/API design. Hands-on understanding of the AI/agent landscape: LLMs, agent orchestration, RAG, evaluation and observability for AI systems, and the practical realities of shipping AI features into production. Track record of delivering builder- or developer-facing products (studios, low-code/no-code tooling, or platform consoles) with excellent UX and reliability at scale. Skills Inventory: Leadership & Talent Management Inspirational leadership & mentorship Talent acquisition & retention Organizational design & scaling Performance management & career development Technical & Architectural Acumen Front-end architecture & Backend-for-Frontend (BFF) design Cloud computing, microservices & large-scale distributed systems AI agent platforms: LLMs, orchestration, evaluation & AI observability DevOps, CI/CD, and SRE principles Data security, guardrails & compliance frameworks Strategic & Business Acumen Long-term strategic planning & vision setting Roadmap development & prioritization Budget & resource management Data-driven decision making & KPI management Execution & Collaboration Agile & iterative development methodologies Cross-functional influence & stakeholder management Exceptional communication & interpersonal skills Problem-solving & crisis management Please note this is a hybrid role that requires an in-office presence 3 days / week (Tue-Thu). At Freshworks, we have fostered an environment that enables everyone to find their true potential, purpose, and passion, welcoming colleagues of all backgrounds, genders, sexual orientations, religions, and ethnicities. We are committed to providing equal opportunity and believe that diversity in the workplace creates a more vibrant, richer environment that boosts the goals of our employees, communities, and business. Fresh vision. Real impact. Come build it with us. Organizations everywhere struggle under the crushing costs and complexities of “solutions” that promise to simplify their lives. To create a better experience for their customers and employees. To help them grow. Software is a choice that can make or break a business. Create better or worse experiences. Propel or throttle growth. Business software has become a blocker instead of ways to get work done. There’s another option. Freshworks. With a fresh vision for how the world works. At Freshworks, we build uncomplicated service software that delivers exceptional customer and employee experiences. Our enterprise-grade solutions are powerful, yet easy to use, and quick to deliver results. Our people-first approach to AI eliminates friction, making employees more effective and organizations more productive. Over 72,000 companies, including Bridgestone, New Balance, Nucor, S&P Global, and Sony Music, trust Freshworks’ customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) software to fuel customer loyalty and service efficiency. And, over 4,500 Freshworks employees make this possible, all around the world. Fresh vision. Real impact. Come build it with us.