About this role
Freshworks is looking for a seasoned Engineering Manager to own and lead the engineering charter for AI Services and AI Applications experiences team. This role will focus on building and scaling foundational AI services, AI middleware that power AI/ML workloads, while also driving impactful AI-powered product experiences across CX and EX products.
This role requires strong technical and strategic leadership to deliver end-to-end AI capabilities spanning platform engineering, distributed systems, machine learning services, product experiences, and integrations. You will lead a team building high-scale, low-latency AI services, including discriminative and generative AI, with product-agnostic UI/UX and integrations across Freshworks products under the Copilot vertical.
Experience in building platform services at scale, with exposure to machine learning (ML), MLOps, or GenAI systems is highly valued. Experience in managing UI/UX, front-end engineering, and system integrations is a strong plus, as it enables building cohesive end-to-end product experiences, ensuring seamless interaction between AI services, user interfaces, and downstream product integrations.
Responsibilities:
Own the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for the core AI services and Copilot application experiences team.Drive execution across cross-functional engineering squads to build scalable, reliable, and reusable platform components.Manage and mentor a high-performing team of engineers, fostering career growth and technical depth.Partner with AI/ML scientists, MLEs, System engineers, product managers, and architects to translate AI research and use cases into production ready services and product integrations.Champion engineering best practices including CI/CD, observability, fault tolerance, and performance.Drive quality, reliability, and efficiency through code and architectural reviews, system observability, and testing standards.Influence and evolve the broader AI platform strategy at Freshworks through thought leadership.Own delivery, SLAs, and operational excellence for AI platform services.Contribute to hiring and shaping the engineering culture within the team and organization. Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent work experience)10+ years of software engineering experience with at least 3+ years in people management rolesProven experience in building and operating platform or AI middleware services at scale, along with delivering strong product UI/UX and seamless integrations.Strong design and architecture skills, especially in distributed systems, backend services, APIs, infrastructure and OpsSet and uphold systems engineering standards around service performance, reliability, and observability—driving metric instrumentation, performance benchmarking, and a strong on-call and incident response cultureExcellent programming skills in one or more languages (Java, Python, Go, etc.)Passion for coaching, growing engineers, and helping them achieve their potentialProven track record of driving technical and process improvements at an organizational levelStrong communication and stakeholder management skillsExperience building machine learning platforms, GenAI integration, or MLOps tooling is a significant plusSkills Inventory
AI Platform Engineering: Building and scaling AI services, AI middleware, Copilot platforms, GenAI and ML-powered systemsDistributed Systems & Backend Architecture: Designing high-scale, low-latency, fault-tolerant backend services, APIs, and integrationsTechnical Leadership & Architecture: Owning technical vision, system architecture, platform roadmaps, and long-term technology strategyPeople Management: Leading, mentoring, and developing high-performing engineering teams; driving hiring and team growthAI/ML & MLOps Exposure: Experience with machine learning platforms, model serving, GenAI integrations, and MLOps toolingProduct Engineering & Integrations: Delivering end-to-end AI-powered product experiences, including UI/UX collaboration and cross-product integrationsEngineering Excellence: Driving CI/CD pipelines, observability, monitoring, fault tolerance, performance optimization, and testing standardsOperational Ownership: Managing SLAs, on-call processes, incident response, reliability, and production readinessProgramming Expertise: Strong hands-on coding in Java, Python, Go, or similar backend languagesCross-Functional Collaboration: Partnering with AI/ML scientists, MLEs, product managers, architects, and platform teamsPlatform & Organizational Impact: Establishing engineering standards, best practices, and scalable platform capabilitiesStakeholder Communication: Translating complex technical concepts into clear, business-aligned outcomes At Freshworks, we have fostered an environment that enables everyone to find their true potential, purpose, and passion, welcoming colleagues of all backgrounds, genders, sexual orientations, religions, and ethnicities. We are committed to providing equal opportunity and believe that diversity in the workplace creates a more vibrant, richer environment that boosts the goals of our employees, communities, and business. Fresh vision. Real impact. Come build it with us.