Vice President, AI Engineering

Consumer Cellular is seeking a Vice President, Artificial Intelligence Engineer to lead the strategy, development, governance, and operational adoption of AI-enabled engineering capabilities across the Information Technology department. This executive role is responsible for advancing practical, secure, and ethical use of artificial intelligence, generative AI, large language models, and AI-assisted tools to improve performance, automation, decision support, engineering productivity, and operational efficiency while protecting customer, employee, and company data.

You will need to reside within 50 miles of our Corporate Headquarters in Scottsdale, AZ as this role has the option of hybrid or onsite.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute the enterprise AI engineering vision, strategy, roadmap, and operating model in alignment with IT priorities, business goals, customer experience objectives, operational efficiency targets, and value creation expectations.

• Lead AI engineering, applied AI, machine learning engineering, platform engineering, automation, architecture, MLOps, and related technical teams responsible for building, integrating, and supporting AI-enabled solutions across enterprise applications and operational workflows.

• Partner with the CIO, executive leadership, product, operations, security, infrastructure, data, legal, privacy, compliance, and business stakeholders to prioritize AI use cases and ensure AI engineering delivery supports measurable business outcomes.

• Establish standards, controls, metrics, and governance for responsible AI development, AI-assisted engineering, model evaluation, prompt management, output validation, human oversight, model monitoring, and accountable use of AI tools.

• Drive responsible adoption of AI tools, including ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and comparable platforms, to optimize engineering productivity, workflow automation, knowledge management, incident analysis, documentation, testing, and operational performance.

• Provide leadership for large language model strategy, including model selection, integration patterns, retrieval-augmented generation, fine-tuning considerations, evaluation frameworks, guardrails, data readiness, and cost-effective scaling.

• Ensure AI engineering practices comply with organizational data privacy standards, information security protocols, responsible AI principles, regulatory requirements, intellectual property considerations, and approved AI usage policies.

• Build, mentor, and develop high-performing AI engineering leaders and teams, fostering a culture of innovation, ethical judgment, accountability, continuous improvement, collaboration, and customer focus.

• Other duties as assigned.

• Bachelor's degree in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Business, or related field (or equivalent work experience).

• 15 years of experience in Progressive technology leadership, including senior leadership of AI engineering, software engineering, data engineering, platform engineering, enterprise architecture, or comparable IT engineering functions.

• Demonstrated experience leading teams that design, build, integrate, deploy, and support AI-enabled products, automation capabilities, machine learning systems, generative AI solutions, or large-scale enterprise technology platforms.

• Strong fluency with large language models, generative AI applications, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, model evaluation, model risk management, AI-assisted development tools, and practical AI use case delivery.

• Experience establishing responsible AI governance, including ethical use, privacy-by-design, security-by-design, human review, transparency, bias awareness, data minimization, output validation, and appropriate usage controls.

• Strong knowledge of modern software engineering practices, agile delivery, DevOps, DevSecOps, cloud architecture, API platforms, data platforms, automation, MLOps, observability, quality engineering, and technical debt management.

• Proven ability to lead large teams of employees, contractors, and strategic partners while developing scalable organizational structures, leadership bench strength, and clear accountability models.

• Exceptional business acumen, financial discipline, communication, stakeholder management, and executive presence, including the ability to translate complex AI, data, security, and engineering topics for senior leadership and board-level audiences.

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, prioritization, and change leadership skills with a track record of delivering measurable improvements in productivity, quality, resiliency, cost, speed, risk reduction, and customer experience.

Technology Requirements:

• Experience with AI and data platforms, cloud services, enterprise application development, APIs, middleware, automation frameworks, MLOps, model monitoring, vector databases, knowledge retrieval, identity and access management, and secure integration patterns.

• Hands-on familiarity with AI-enabled productivity and engineering tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and comparable platforms, including the ability to evaluate appropriate use cases, adoption readiness, measurable value, and operational risk.

• Working knowledge of large language model capabilities and limitations, including hallucination risk, model bias, data leakage, prompt injection, model access controls, secure prompt design, explainability, and human-in-the-loop validation.

• Ability to evaluate, rationalize, and modernize complex application and data portfolios while maintaining system availability, business continuity, security, privacy, and compliance requirements.

• Working knowledge of AI performance metrics, engineering productivity dashboards, model quality measures, incident trends, operational resiliency, cost-to-serve indicators, and adoption effectiveness measures.

• Demonstrated ability to responsibly evaluate and adopt emerging technologies while ensuring all AI-assisted work aligns with organizational ethics expectations, data privacy standards, security protocols, legal requirements, and approved usage policies.

Technology & Innovation:

• Continuous Improvement: Proactively identifies and integrates emerging technologies, including AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot), to optimize performance and operational efficiency.

• Minimum Salary: $210,000

• Maximum Salary: $367,500

This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors. Our Talent Acquisition team are able to answer any additional questions you may have as you move through the selection process. As part of our Total Rewards package, Consumer Cellular, Inc. offers a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle and other benefits and perks that enhance your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.

• Competitive base pay with potential for shift differential, overtime and bonus pay

• Medical insurance (98% company-paid for full-time employee only coverage)

• Dental and Vision insurance (100% company-paid for full-time employee only coverage)

• 401(k) company match of 100% up to 6% of your pay

• Discounted Consumer Cellular wireless phone plan for employees

• Paid Time Off (PTO) available following a 30-day waiting period

• • 6 company-paid holidays plus 16 hours of floating holiday accrual per year

• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for health care and dependent care expenses

• Life and AD&D insurance equal to 1x your annual earnings (100% company-paid)

• Long-Term Disability insurance (100% company-paid)

• Employee Assistance Program (100% company-paid)

• Education reimbursement

• Employee rewards program

+ **Compliance & Ethics:** Ensures all AI-assisted work aligns with organizational data privacy standards, security protocols, and ethical usage policies. About Consumer Cellular Founded in 1995, Consumer Cellular is the first wireless provider unapologetically built for Americans 50 . An approved wireless partner of AARP, Consumer Cellular is trusted by more than 4 million subscribers for affordable plans, popular phones and devices, and great nationwide coverage, all backed by top-rated, 100% U.S. based customer support. Based in Scottsdale, AZ, with 3,000 employees in company locations throughout the U.S., Consumer Cellular has earned recognition as the most awarded wireless brand for customer service. The company has been honored as #1 in customer service in its industry numerous times and, in 2024, ranked #1 in network coverage and customer satisfaction among wireless carriers by American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) . Additionally, the company has been featured 12 times on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing privately held U.S. companies. Consumer Cellular phones, devices and plans are available nationwide through our company-owned neighborhood stores, online at ConsumerCellular.com , by phone at (888) 345-5509, and at leading retailers including Walmart. Connect with Consumer Cellular on Facebook , Instagram , and Youtube for tutorials, features, applications, and company news. Pay & Benefits Data (in accordance with the Equal Pay and Opportunities Act)