Practice Director - Cloud AI, Digital Innovations

At Woolpert, you’ll do work that matters. As a leading global architecture, engineering, and geospatial firm, we help clients solve complex challenges that shape communities, strengthen critical infrastructure, advance technology, and improve the world around us. Here, you’ll collaborate across disciplines, tackle meaningful projects, and build a career defined by growth, opportunity, and impact. Position Overview Woolpert is hiring an AI Practice Director to join our dynamic Digital Innovations team. This position reports to the Head of Customer Engineering and is responsible for shaping the vision, strategy, and execution of our Artificial Intelligence services. This role leads the growth of our AI capability across enterprise client engagements, aligning cutting-edge AI technologies (including Google Cloud Platform, Vertex AI, Generative AI, and geospatial intelligence) with business outcomes for our clients. As the AI Practice Director, you will be the executive leader and practice builder driving strategic offerings, practice profitability, go-to-market execution, and talent development. You will partner with executive stakeholders, cross-functional sales leaders, and delivery teams to position Woolpert as a premier provider of enterprise AI solutions, AI agents, and advanced data platforms. We are unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position. Applicants must already possess work authorization in the country the job is located. What You Will Do: - Practice Vision & Strategy: Define and execute the multi-year business strategy, service offerings, and growth roadmap for the AI Practice within Woolpert Digital Innovations. - Leadership & Talent Growth: Recruit, mentor, and lead a world-class team of AI Customer Engineers, Solution Architects, and AI specialists, fostering a culture of technical excellence and innovation. - Go-To-Market & Business Development: Partner with sales, account managers, and executive leadership to drive revenue growth, expand client relationships, and lead high-stakes technical pitches and proposals. - Thought Leadership & Partnership: Serve as the primary executive sponsor for key partner relationships (including Google Cloud) and represent Woolpert at industry conferences, panels, and executive briefings. - Delivery Oversight & Excellence: Ensure high-quality technical delivery across all AI engagements, establishing best practices for solution architecture, enterprise integrations, and Responsible AI governance. - Operational Management: Oversee practice utilization, resource allocation, margin targets, and financial performance for AI consulting engagements and technical solutions. - Executive Advisory: Advise enterprise C-suite executives on AI transformation roadmaps, ROI realization, AI readiness, and governance frameworks. What You Will Bring: - 8+ years of technical leadership or practice management experience in professional services, cloud consulting, or tech firms, with 3+ years specifically focused on building and delivering AI, machine learning, or data platform solutions. - Demonstrated success growing a professional services practice, managing P&L or practice metrics, and driving partner co-sell strategies (preferably with Google Cloud). - Strong background in cloud architecture (GCP preferred), enterprise AI models, data infrastructure, and modern software engineering principles. - GCP & Cloud Data Architecture: Extensive hands-on experience designing, architecting, and deploying production-grade solutions on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including big data architecture, data lakes, and data warehousing. - Google Certification: Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Architect, Data Engineer, or Professional Machine Learning Engineer required. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS - Experience with Agentic AI frameworks (LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, or Semantic Kernel). - Knowledge of non-Google geospatial platforms and tools, such as ArcGIS, GeoServer, QGIS, OpenLayers, MapBox, or CARTO. - Relevant Google, Amazon, or Azure certification (e.g., Google Professional Cloud Architect or Data Engineer). - Experience with cloud-native infrastructure (Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform) and CI/CD pipelines. - Strong debugging skills for non-deterministic AI outputs and complex API tracing. SUCCESS IN THIS ROLE Core Skills - Clarity: You use a communication style that is appropriate to the context and you respect the time of others. - Empathy: You ask lots of questions to understand the deeper meaning behind motivations and act in the best interests of the customer. - Active Listener: You listen more than you talk, and you know when not to share your thoughts. - Embrace Diversity: You believe new and different perspectives strengthen any relationship, solution, or engagement. Technical Skills - Strategic Leadership: You translate complex technical opportunities into clear executive strategy and operational execution. - Practice Building: You know how to build, scale, and manage profitable consulting practices and technical capability teams. - AI Architecture Authority: You possess deep understanding of modern AI patterns, including LLMs, RAG, agentic workflows, and cloud data platforms. - Client Executive Presence: You easily build trust with CTOs, CIOs, and business leaders, converting technical capabilities into strategic partnerships. - Effective Learner: You approach new technical subject matter systematically. Figuring out an API, learning a new CLI, or jumping into a new codebase are just things you do. - DevOps Mindset: You know shipping once is easy, but shipping repeatedly in production requires discipline. Infrastructure is code! - Machine Learning: You have a strong foundation in core machine learning principles, model training, evaluation metrics, and feature engineering. Benefits You Will Love Certified as a Great Place to Work, Woolpert is one of the fastest-growing architecture, engineering, and geospatial companies in the world. With over 75 offices and countless projects around the globe, you’ll work on meaningful assignments that improve quality of life around the world. In addition to offering competitive pay, we provide employees with a robust set of unique benefits, including: - Freedom to Work program: Set your own schedule and location (as appropriate). - Principal program: Earn the opportunity to become an owner of the firm. - Flexible paid time off/vacation: Take time off when it makes sense for you and your team. - Career development: Explore a wide range of learning and growth opportunities within and across industries. - Health, life, vision, and dental insurance: Cover all your medical bases. - Paid sick time, retirement plan, fitness reimbursement, pet insurance, identity protection, technology stipend, employee assistance program, and more! Base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Pay Range $139,200—$208,800 USD Find out more about what Woolpert has to offer here: http://woolpert.com/about-us/ Woolpert is an equal-opportunity employer. Woolpert is committed to the full inclusion of all individuals. We recruit, train, compensate, and promote regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected status as required by applicable law. You may view more about EEO on our website: Equal-Employment-Opportunity-The-Law.pdf and EEO is the Law Poster Supplement. Applicants who require an accommodation throughout the application and interview process should request this in advance by contacting your Recruiter To all agencies: Please, no phone calls or emails to any employee of Woolpert or any of our subsidiaries about this requisition. All resumes submitted by search firms/employment agencies to any employee at Woolpert via email, the internet, or in any form and/or method will be deemed the sole property of Woolpert, unless such search firms/employment agencies were engaged by Woolpert's Talent Acquisition Team for this requisition and a valid agreement is in place. In the event a candidate who was submitted outside of Woolpert's applicant process is hired, no fee or payment of any kind will be paid.