Senior Director, Software Engineering

Senior Manager, Software Engineering (AI Engineering) -- Tel Aviv

JLL | AI Engineering | Full-Time

About The Role

JLL's AI Engineering team is building the AI systems that are reshaping how a $20B global real estate firm operates -- from LLM gateways and agent infrastructure to AI-powered products used by thousands of employees worldwide.

We're looking for an Engineering Manager to lead a globally distributed team from our Tel Aviv base. You'll own two sub-teams -- one focused on AI infrastructure and one on AI product delivery -- along with Claude Enterprise operations. Team composition will shift as the organization scales; expect anywhere from 2 to 10 direct reports at different points in time.

This role demands genuine flexibility: you may be managing a full squad one quarter and running lean with heavy AI leverage the next. We expect you to stay close to the work, pick up an IC contribution when needed, and model what great AI-augmented engineering looks like in how you work, communicate, and coach.

What You'll Do

• Lead a distributed team (2-10 engineers, composition evolves over time) across AI infrastructure and product tracks
• Own Claude Enterprise operations -- reliability, governance, and roadmap alignment
• Set technical direction, remove blockers, and maintain delivery momentum across both sub-teams
• Partner closely with the AI Engineering Tower Lead and peer lane leads in the US and APAC to align on priorities
• Collaborate directly with the product team (under the Head of AI Products) to translate product priorities into engineering delivery
• Manage external stakeholder relationships inherited from prior leadership -- including enterprise platform partners such as TAT-ASA
• Drive engineering quality -- code review culture and LLM evaluation frameworks across the team's products
• Represent the team in AI governance forums (e.g. Agent Capabilities Working Group) as needed
• Recruit, onboard, and develop engineers; run structured 1:1s and career growth conversations
• Make pragmatic build-vs-buy and tooling decisions for AI capabilities
• Stay hands-on when needed; use AI tooling aggressively to sustain throughput regardless of team size
• Represent the team's work upward and to cross-functional stakeholders
  
  

• 8+ years in software engineering, including 3+ years managing engineering teams
• Comfortable operating as a player-coach -- able to contribute technically when the team runs lean
• Meaningful exposure to AI/ML systems -- enough to understand tradeoffs, timelines, and what production readiness actually means
• Background in either infrastructure or product engineering (ideally both)
• Experience leading distributed, multicultural teams across timezones -- comfortable with early-morning APAC overlap and late-afternoon AMER overlap from a Tel Aviv base
  
  

• RAG architecture and retrieval systems
• AI agent orchestration
• Event streaming (Kafka or equivalent)
• Cloud-native infrastructure (AKS or equivalent)
• Modern frontend (React/TypeScript)
  
  

• Sufficient AI fluency to earn technical credibility: you don't need to write the code, but you need to understand RAG, agent orchestration, and LLM observability
• Able to context-switch between infrastructure and product delivery conversations
• Strong communicator -- comfortable bridging engineering detail and business context
  
  

• Agile mindset -- you move fast, adapt quickly, and don't hide behind process
• High EQ -- you know how to lead experienced, opinionated engineers without micromanaging
• Genuinely curious -- you keep up with the AI landscape because you find it interesting
• You use AI tools heavily in your own day-to-day and lead by example -- you treat AI leverage as a force multiplier, not a nice-to-have
• Confident decision-maker -- you drive clarity in ambiguous situations and move the team forward
  
  

• Experience managing teams that span both platform/infra and product delivery
• Familiarity with LLM gateway tooling (LiteLLM or similar)
• Prior work in large-scale internal enterprise products
  
  

• You'll be building real AI infrastructure that affects how a global workforce operates
• You'll be part of the team driving AI innovation across JLL, within the APEX program
• Tel Aviv base with room to build a local presence alongside a globally distributed team
• Direct line to engineering leadership and a seat at the table for major AI decisions