Applied AI Team Lead

Who are we?

Zencity is re-inventing the way governments listen to, understand, and interact with their residents. Our community trust platform uses advanced Natural Language Processing, ML algorithms and generative AI to help government organizations hear from more citizens, be more data-driven and increase resident satisfaction.

Zencity’s global team of urban enthusiasts and data geeks work with hundreds of cities and counties worldwide - from Los Angeles, to Chicago, to Tel Aviv. If you’re passionate about joining a growing company whose focus is on leveraging data and tech to radically improve life in communities - your place is with us!

What is the role?

As the Team Lead for our Applied AI team, you will join our Tel Aviv office. You will guide the day‑to‑day execution of innovative projects to help mayors and other city leaders understand their communities and improve the lives of millions worldwide. Reporting to the VP of Data Science, you will combine hands‑on technical leadership with people management skills, overseeing a team with rapidly-growing portfolio of mission-critical projects and collaborating with product, engineering, and other internal partners. You’ll be responsible for leading every aspect of the development process, so that our cutting‑edge AI and data science capabilities get to production quickly, reliably, and with maximum impact.

Day to Day

• Lead a 5‑person team of data scientists and engineers, coordinating stand‑ups, code reviews, and 1‑on‑1s while also contributing hands-on to high-priority projects.
• Oversee the development and implementation of a diverse project portfolio, focused on both customer-facing product features and internal business use cases.
• Scope, execute, and deliver end‑to‑end AI and data science capabilities to meet the requirements of product owners and internal stakeholders.
• Play a leading role in the development of AI-focused infrastructure and the implementation of best practices for engineering and data science.
• Track project risks, dependencies, and costs, and make proactive adjustments to keep initiatives on time and aligned with requirements.
• Stay current with the latest developments in AI technologies and tools, and identify opportunities to integrate the latest innovations into our products and workflows.
• Recruit, onboard, and develop team members to help scale our Applied AI program and promote a culture of technical excellence.
• Work an in‑person or hybrid schedule, with at least three days per week in our Tel Aviv office.

Requirements

• 2 + years as a leader of engineering or data science teams, with a track record of shipping data-intensive tools or services to production.
• 6 + years hands‑on building data-driven solutions with Python and SQL.
• Experience deploying services using cloud-based infrastructure and data tools such as PostgreSQL, Databricks, and Spark.
• Strong understanding of the key concepts and usage of modern AI tools such as LLMs, RAG systems, and AI agents.
• Solid software engineering fundamentals (including design patterns, data structures, and version control) and familiarity with Agile practices.
• Proven ability to manage project scope, timelines, and cross‑team dependencies.
• Comfort implementing rapid, iterative development processes while also prioritizing quality, reliability, and maintainability.
• Excellent command of English, both verbal and written, and comfortable presenting technical topics to non‑technical stakeholders.

It’s even better if you have …

• Proficiency with CI/CD tools and practices, containers, serverless architectures, and automated testing and monitoring.
• Experience deploying models to production using leading machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or PyTorch.
• Experience with Agile development processes and project management in JIRA.
• Expertise in machine learning metrics and monitoring.
• Experience with geospatial analysis, government data, survey research, or civic tech applications.
• Demonstrated success hiring and developing technical talent.
• Contributions to open‑source projects or an advanced degree in a relevant field.