Director, Applied AI and Machine Learning

Helping careers take flight. Reshaping an industry. Enable your career to be Made on Duck Creek.       WHO WE ARE:      Duck Creek Technologies is the intelligent solutions provider defining the future of the property and casualty (P&C) and general insurance industry. We are the platform upon which modern insurance systems are built, enabling the industry to capitalize on the power of the cloud to run agile, intelligent, and evergreen operations. Our modern SaaS solutions help insurers set a new standard and revolutionize how consumers interact with insurance companies.      Authenticity, purpose, and transparency are core to Duck Creek, and we believe insurance should be there for individuals and businesses when, where, and how they need it most. Our market-leading solutions are available on a standalone basis or as a full suite, and all are available via Duck Creek OnDemand. With more than 1,000 successful implementations to date, Duck Creek removes the IT burden for insurers so they can focus on the business of insurance.     We have a flock of more than 1,700 employees across the globe and are proud to be a Flexible-First employer. We empower our employees with the choice to work from an office, from home, or on a hybrid schedule. Our flexible-first environment fosters productivity, inclusion, collaboration, and ensures a consistent employee experience regardless of location.     If working in a fast-paced, rapidly evolving company that is transforming one of the world’s oldest and largest industries sounds exciting, let us know. We are excited you are considering Duck Creek as a future employer and hope you decide to join “The Flock”!     To learn more about us, visit www.duckcreek.com and follow us on our social channels for the latest information –  LinkedIn  and  Twitter .    Duck Creek is a flexible-first company, and that remains core to how we work. As part of our Flying Together initiative, we’re taking a more intentional approach to how teams come together, while continuing to support flexibility in day-to-day work. We’re focusing hiring in designated locations, including our existing offices and key growth areas such as Boston, MA, Columbia, SC, Bolivar, MO, and the Bay Area, CA, where we are building stronger team presence and connection. We believe in bringing teams together for meaningful, in-person collaboration moments. Candidates should be within a reasonable distance of one of these locations and open to participating in those moments as guided by their team and leader.  Expectations for in-person time will be shaped by the team and leader and will continue to evolve over time. TITLE : Director, Applied AI and Machine Learning  Role Overview Duck Creek Technologies is seeking an AI and machine learning leader to build the capabilities that help our teams select, develop, evaluate, and operate models in production. You will lead data scientists and ML platform and operations teams, and work across Product, Engineering, and insurance subject matter experts to create a trusted foundation for model selection, model routing, AI evaluations, and responsible deployment. This role combines organizational leadership with practical depth in model training and refinement, fine-tuning, and the systems required to deliver reliable results at scale. WHAT YOU’LL DO: Set the AI and machine learning strategy for Duck Creek Intelligence, connecting model and platform investments to product priorities, customer needs, and business outcomes.  Lead the model lifecycle from problem framing and data readiness through model selection, training, refinement, fine-tuning, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, and ongoing improvement.  Guide teams in choosing the right approach for each use case, including foundation models, task-specific models, traditional machine learning, and hybrid methods. Establish when to use, adapt, replace, or retire a model.  Build a shared foundation for model access and routing, including clear selection criteria, orchestration patterns, fallback behavior, versioning, and operational controls across internal and external models.  Establish an AI evaluation practice that combines offline benchmarks, task-specific quality measures, expert review, safety and reliability checks, and production feedback. Make evaluation results useful to Product and Engineering decisions.  Build and operate MLOps and model platform capabilities for reproducible training, deployment, observability, performance and cost management, and safe iteration in production.  Lead, coach, and grow data scientists and ML operations and engineering teams. Set clear goals, develop technical leaders, and create effective collaboration across disciplines.  Partner closely with Product, Engineering, architecture, security, legal, and insurance subject matter experts to turn real workflows and domain knowledge into well-scoped, measurable AI solutions.  Represent Duck Creek in strategic model and technology partnerships. Evaluate providers and lead technical and commercial discussions, including partnership and model-development negotiations with major vendors such as Google, in coordination with internal stakeholders.  Set practical standards for data quality, model documentation, privacy, security, responsible AI, governance, and human oversight throughout the model lifecycle.  Communicate complex technical trade-offs clearly to executives and cross-functional teams, creating alignment on priorities, risks, investment decisions, and success measures.  WHAT YOU’VE DONE:      10+ years of experience in machine learning, data science, AI engineering, or a related technical discipline, including meaningful hands-on work in developing and improving models.  5+ years leading technical teams, including data scientists and teams responsible for ML platforms, model operations, or production ML systems.  Direct experience with model training and refinement, and