Director, APAC AI COE

The Director, APAC AI COE is an executive-level technical leadership and representative role. You will lead an elite, multi-disciplinary R&D engineering squad of Singapore-based Tech FTEs, encompassing engineers, architects, forward-deployed engineers, and project managers. In this dual-hatted role, you will act as the principal strategic architect and chief administrative representative of the COE. Externally, you will serve as the primary executive liaison to the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and other relevant government bodies, safeguarding alignment with national research guidelines and innovation schemes. You will represent the organization on major open-source governing boards (such as CNCF, LF AI & Data, AAIF) and act as a trusted technical advisor to C-level client executives and regional semiconductor partners. Internally, you will govern the COE's R&D lifecycle. You will ensure the team functions as a high-performance innovation engine, transforming complex regional requirements—such as Sovereign AI, air-gapped security, and heterogeneous hardware tuning—into validated, open-source architectural blueprints and product features. Key Responsibilities 1. Executive Representation & Ecosystem Alignment • Government Affairs: Serve as the primary, high-visibility representative to the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and related government stakeholders. Ensure all COE initiatives, resource allocations, and R&D outputs remain compliant with the Research & Innovation Scheme and national AI guidelines. • Open-Source Stewardship & Governance: Actively represent the COE in global and regional open-source AI community foundations. Advocate for regional technical requirements and position the COE’s software contributions to drive global industry standards. • Ecosystem & Semiconductor Orchestration: Lead technical co-development and joint innovation strategies with key APAC semiconductor partners (GPU/NPU chipmakers), regional ISVs, and global system integrators (GSIs). 2. R&D Engine Governance & Upstream Delivery (70% Target) • Upstream R&D Ownership: Champion the COE's core technical goal of upstreaming 70% of built software primitives directly into global open-source projects. Ensure the team is systematically closing product gaps in core engines like vLLM, llm-d, and Ray. • Forward-Deployed Engineering (FDE) Orchestration: Direct the deployment of Principal Forward Deployed Engineers and Senior Architects to key customer accounts. Oversee the resolution of complex system-level integration barriers, air-gapped network designs, and low-latency infrastructure setups. • Industry AI Quickstarts: Drive the packaging of engineering efforts into highly reusable, productized, and open-sourced AI Quickstarts (e.g., secure Agentic RAG for regulated domains) to shift regional markets from bespoke consulting to accelerated platform adoption. 3. Multi-Disciplinary Squad Leadership & COE Management • Manage the Singapore Technical Squad: Provide strategic direction, mentoring, and administrative governance to an elite team consisting of a Senior Principal Chief Architect, Principal FDEs, AI/ML Engineers, AI/ML Architects, and AI/ML Project Managers. • Promote Software Craftsmanship: Foster a culture prioritizing open-source contribution, technical craftsmanship, and architectural rigor. Design career pathways that reward both deep technical innovation tracks and delivery governance tracks. • Operational & Financial Rigor: Manage the COE's operating model, budget compliance, and milestone-tracking. Partner with project managers to ensure agile 1-to-3 month prototyping execution cycles are met with outstanding delivery velocity. 4. Strategic Customer-Facing Delivery & Pre-Sales / Services Alignment • Executive Technical Advisory: Serve as a high-authority technical advisor to strategic C-level customer executives (CTOs, CIOs, CDOs) across APAC, translating complex business challenges into production-ready hybrid cloud architectures. • Sales Cycle Hand-off Alignment: Partner closely with Tech Sales Leadership and regional Solutions Architects to qualify high-impact opportunities. Ensure clear boundaries between the COE’s R&D engine, the pre-sales pipeline, and downstream Services teams (which handle production hardening and scale deployment). • Executive Briefings: Lead high-stakes discovery workshops and design-thinking sessions to help regional enterprise customers visualize the "art of the possible" with sovereign and localized AI stacks. Core Qualifications & Essential Skills Academic & Professional Experience • Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related quantitative field. An MBA or advanced business-strategy certification is a strong differentiator. • Experience: 12+ years of progressive professional experience in software engineering, system architecture, or technical R&D leadership, with at least 5+ years in an executive-level strategic role bridging technical capabilities with corporate business strategy. • Representative Track Record: Proven experience interfacing with government investment/economic development agencies (specifically Singapore EDB, IMDA, or equivalent regional bodies) and managing compliance under research grants or schemes. • Open-Source Leadership: Demonstrated active contribution to, or leadership within, open-source communities (GitHub portfolios, community governance, or technical steering committee involvement is highly valued). • Executive Communication: Outstanding verbal and written communication in English. Proven ability to translate deep system-level concepts into clear, business-value narratives for government officials, C-suite executives, and community developers. Strategic Technology & Business Alignment (Target Capabilities) • Technology-to-Value Mapping: Exceptional capability to conceptualize deep technical concepts (such as containerization, distributed compu…