Senior IT Manager - AI Innovation & Engineering

About this role

Job Posting: Since 1953, Ferguson has been a source of quality supplies for a variety of industries. Together We Build Better infrastructure, better homes and better businesses. We exist to make our customers’ complex projects simple, successful, and sustainable. We proactively solve problems, adapt and grow to continuously serve our customers, communities and each other. Ferguson, a Fortune 500 company, is proud to provide best-in-class products, service and capabilities across the following industries: Commercial/Mechanical, Facilities Supply, Fire and Fabrication, HVAC, Industrial, Residential Trade, Residential Building and Remodel, Waterworks and Residential Digital Commerce. Ferguson has approximately 36,000 associates across 1,700 locations. Ferguson is a community of proud associates who operate with the shared purpose of building something meaningful. You will build a career that you are proud of, at a company you can believe in.

Senior Manager, AI Innovation & Engineering

The Senior Manager, AI Innovation & Engineering is a strategic technology leader within Ferguson's AI Technology and Innovation organization, responsible for leading high-performing teams that design, build, and scale AI-powered products and capabilities. This role oversees multiple AI engineering and innovation squads, driving the successful delivery of solutions that transform business operations, enhance customer experiences, and accelerate enterprise innovation. Partnering closely with Product, Platform Engineering, Data Science, Architecture, and business leaders, this individual will translate Ferguson's AI strategy into actionable roadmaps and engineering priorities. The ideal candidate combines deep technical leadership, people management, product delivery expertise, and a passion for innovation to guide solutions from experimentation through production while ensuring scalability, security, reliability, and measurable business value. Reporting to the Director, AI Technology and Innovation, this leader will foster a culture of continuous improvement, engineering excellence, and innovation while building and developing teams that deliver impactful AI solutions across the enterprise.

Location: This role is approved to be remote within the United States; however, candidates must reside in the Eastern or Central time zones to support collaboration with team members based in Newport News, VA, and our Global Capability Center (GCC) team in India. Associates located near Newport News may work in a hybrid arrangement in accordance with company policy. Occasional travel to Ferguson headquarters in Newport News, VA, and other company locations, including Tampa, FL, is expected.

Duties and Responsibilities: • Lead and develop several AI engineering and innovation groups, encouraging a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement. • Partner with business and technology leaders to define AI priorities, roadmaps, and delivery plans aligned with strategic objectives. • Drive the design, development, and deployment of scalable AI-powered products and solutions on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). • Provide technical leadership and guidance across solution architecture, engineering practices, code quality, testing, security, and performance. • Build, coach, and retain high-performing teams through effective hiring, mentoring, and career development. • Oversee delivery of AI initiatives from concept through production, ensuring quality, reliability, and business value. • Collaborate with Product, Data Science, Platform Engineering, and Architecture teams to deliver innovative solutions that meet business needs. • Manage budgets, vendor partnerships, project plans, and team capacity to ensure successful execution of critical initiatives. • Drive continuous improvement of Agile delivery practices, engineering standards, and software development processes. • Monitor operational performance, address risks and dependencies, and ensure ongoing support and scalability of AI solutions. • Build strong relationships with business customers across the organization and communicate progress, outcomes, and strategic recommendations. • Stay ahead of emerging AI technologies and industry trends to help shape Ferguson's AI strategy and innovation roadmap. • Adhering to all policies, rules, regulations, and procedures. • Performing other duties or functions as requested by management.

Qualifications and Requirements: • Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science or related field, or equivalent experience preferred. • Must have at least 8-10 years of hands-on experience delivering AI or software engineering initiatives, including meaningful time in a formal people-management role, with a breadth of knowledge on how innovation and engineering squads integrate within and across different business domains. • Must have prior experience directly managing engineering or technical talent — including managing other managers or squad leads — with performance management and career development responsibility; experience with offshore/onsite personnel preferred. • Knowledge of Ferguson's business and application data domains, and how they integrate with core enterprise and third-party systems, is a plus. • Must have experience in process architecture aimed at analyzing, simplifying, and improving existing processes, and bringing in accountability using data/BI tooling to capture and track the right benchmarks across squads. • Must have a hands-on software programming background in Java and/or Python, with Software Architecture and Engineering experience building services (MSA, SOA, Integrations); architect-level experience strongly preferred. • Must have experience in DevSecOps, CI/CD, pipeline development. • Must have hands-on experience building and leading engineering squads on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). • Must have experience creating operational dashboards, telemetry configurations and alerting template

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