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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Director, Contact Center AI Strategy and Automation - **Company:** Shift4 Payments, LLC - **Location:** Upper Saucon Township, PA, United States - **Experience:** Experienced - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, Customer Interaction Management (Software), Knowledge Management, Salesforce.Com, Systems Integration, Genesys, Large Language Models, Legacy Systems - **Published:** September 7, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=ce78bc54d13c0a06 ## About the Role * 7+ years in contact center operations, CX strategy, or automation/AI strategy roles, with at least 3 years at a leadership level with direct executive exposure. * Demonstrated, quantified track record of reducing contact volume or driving efficiency through AI/automation in a contact center environment - able to speak to specific % reduction, cost avoided, or CSAT/AHT impact achieved. * Deep working knowledge of contact center operations end-to-end: routing, IVR, QA, WFM, and channel economics - enough to credibly assess where automation helps versus where it creates hidden cost (e.g., chat AHT inflation from multitasking customers). * Experience partnering with Product and Engineering to convert operational pain points into roadmap items, including building and defending a business case. * Hands-on experience with contact center or workflow technologies, including configuration, prototyping, APIs, integrations, and sufficient technical depth to partner effectively with Engineering. * Proven ability to present to and influence senior/executive audiences independently, without heavy staffing support. * Experience operating in a decentralized, multi-brand or multi-acquisition environment (comparable to Shift4's ISV/SkyTab/Revel/Vectron structure) where standardizing across disparate legacy systems and teams is part of the job. * Comfortable working independently in a fast-moving, still-forming function - this role will need to define its own operating rhythm, not inherit one. Preferred Qualifications (Additional experience that is a plus to have): * Familiarity with conversational AI/CCaaS platforms such as NICE CXone, Cognigy, Genesys, Five9, or comparable, from a strategy/business-owner perspective rather than an admin/builder perspective. * Experience in payments, FinTech, POS, or another highly regulated, high-mix-complexity industry. * Background in a support organization that underwent multiple acquisitions/integrations, with direct experience rationalizing tools and processes across newly combined teams. * Familiarity with LLM-based agent-assist or generative AI applications in a service/support context. ## Description Contact Driver Diagnosis * Build and own a repeatable methodology for analyzing contact drivers across all Support lines (Shift4 Dine, Software Support, Consolidated Support, Vectron, Shared Services) - using call recordings, transcript/topic analysis, Salesforce case data, and NICE CXone analytics. * Quantify contact volume by root cause and distinguish three buckets for every driver: (1) eliminable via product fix, (2) eliminable via process/policy fix, (3) not eliminable but shiftable to bot or self-service. * Maintain a prioritized, ROI-ranked backlog of contact-reduction opportunities and present it to senior leadership on a recurring cadence. AI & Self-Service Strategy * Design the end-to-end strategy for where conversational AI, agent-assist, and self-service belong in the merchant journey - balancing Shift4's channel-shift goals against the reality that POS troubleshooting calls often run 45-60 minutes and don't compress cleanly into chat or bots. * Define target-state automation architecture in partnership with Contact Center Technology (Cognigy, NICE CXone AI, or equivalent), without owning the underlying platform build. * Establish guardrails for what merchants should never be routed to a bot for, and where agent-assist (not replacement) is the right AI application. Cross-Functional Execution * Partner with each Support line leader to translate their team's operational and merchant-facing knowledge into automation and self-service requirements Product and Engineering can act on. * Represent Support's contact-reduction agenda in Product and Engineering roadmap conversations, arguing the business case where automation requires upstream product changes. * Work directly with Contact Center Technology, WFM, and Knowledge Management (all under Shared Services) so strategy, staffing model, and knowledge base evolve together rather than in silos. Measurement & Executive Reporting * Own the contact-reduction scorecard: contacts eliminated, contacts deflected/shifted, self-service resolution rate, CSAT/QA impact of automation, and realized cost/efficiency impact. * Present strategy, business cases, and results directly to senior executives, including tradeoffs and where AI should NOT be applied. * Build the change-management approach for rolling out automation to a 1,000-person org without degrading quality scores or morale.