Manager, AI Engineering - Analytics

At Drata, we’re not just building software - we’re building a mindset. Everything we do springs from:

• Stay deeply hands-on by writing code, designing systems, and reviewing PRs

• Own critical paths and pair with engineers on the hardest parts of the product

• Keep close to the codebase and the customer experience even as the team grows

• Set the bar for engineering quality through your own work

• Lead a small, focused team of engineers and grow it thoughtfully over time

• Set clear goals, run good 1:1s, and create an environment where engineers do their best work

• Give direct, useful feedback and help engineers grow in their careers

• Invest in the basics of management: hiring, performance, career growth, and team health

• Partner with leadership to grow into the formal management craft

• Set the technical direction for AI-driven analytics and the data foundation underneath it

• Make pragmatic decisions across the stack, from data modeling to agent design

• Define multi-tenant data access patterns that safely serve customer-scoped data at scale

• Make sound build, buy, and adopt decisions for the team's tooling

• Stay current on developments in applied AI and bring relevant ideas back to the team

• Help shape and build features that let users ask questions of their data in natural language

• Ground AI responses in real data, handle ambiguity, and surface uncertainty appropriately

• Keep AI-driven experiences fast, accurate, and trustworthy

• Iterate quickly with design partners to find what works in production

• Build the evals, telemetry, and offline/online test loops the team relies on

• Establish eval-driven development as the default workflow

• Define what "good" means for each AI feature and measure it rigorously

• Use eval results to guide model, prompt, and architecture decisions

• Drive end-to-end delivery from spec to GA

• Partner with Product on scope, sequencing, and tradeoffs

• Ship iteratively to design partners, instrument adoption, and learn from real usage

• Establish the metrics that prove the experience is delivering value

• Real AI engineering background with at least one agent or LLM-powered system shipped to production end-to-end

• Working knowledge of prompts, tool use, retrieval, and structured outputs

• Understanding of latency, cost, and quality tradeoffs in LLM-based systems

• Familiarity with the failure modes of AI features in the real world

• Hands-on experience designing and building evals for AI systems

• Comfort with offline benchmarks, regression testing for non-deterministic systems, and online feedback loops

• Ability to articulate how to evaluate an agent before, during, and after launch

• Bias toward measurable quality over vibes

• Strong SQL skills and comfort with modern data warehouses

• Experience with data modeling and the plumbing that powers analytics

• Ability to reason about query performance, data contracts, and multi-tenant access patterns

• Comfort working close to the data, not just on top of it

• Happy writing code and intend to keep doing it

• Pragmatic about technology choices and careful about complexity

• Bias toward shipping and learning over over-engineering

• Comfortable working across the full stack on a small team

• Track record of leading projects, mentoring engineers, and driving technical direction

• Strong written and verbal communication

• Direct, kind feedback style and a desire to invest in growing a team

• Clear pull toward leadership, even without prior formal management experience

Requirements:

• 6+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 focused on AI/ML or applied AI work (agents, LLMs, evals, or similar)

• At least one agent or LLM-powered system deployed to production that you owned end-to-end

• Hands-on experience building and using evals to measure and improve AI quality

• Solid data engineering or analytics engineering experience, including SQL, modeling, and modern data warehouses

• Track record of shipping production software on small teams and operating across the full stack

• Experience as a tech lead, project lead, or strong mentor, with a desire to grow into formal management

• Strong written and verbal communication

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience

• Prior experience working on a customer-facing data product, embedded analytics, BI tooling, or a natural language interface over structured data (text-to-SQL, conversational analytics, or similar)

• Experience with semantic modeling layers or modern BI infrastructure

• Experience integrating AI agents with structured data sources

• Background in compliance, security, GRC, or other regulated SaaS verticals

• Prior tech lead or team lead experience

• Previous experience at high-growth SaaS companies

How we support you:
At Drata, our people are our strongest advantage—and we prove it with support that exceeds industry standards. Our total rewards package is designed to power your well-being, accelerate your growth, and keep your work-life balance thriving.

Explore how we invest in your Life at Drata.

• Shared Success: We provide stock equity to ensure that as the company grows, you share directly in that success. Equity gives every employee a sense of ownership and the opportunity to celebrate our wins together—because your contributions don’t just support our progress; they help drive our collective success.

• Health & Wellness: Up to 100% employer-paid premiums for medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and their dependents, along with comprehensive wellness benefits and healthcare concierge services designed to support your needs beyond traditional insurance.

• Financial Well-being: A comprehensive suite of financial benefits, including a 401(k) plan, company-paid life and disability insurance, tax-advantaged spending accounts, and a range of discounted voluntary offerings to help you customize and strengthen your overall financial position.

• Family Support: We want to support you in life's most important moments, so we offer a paid Parental Leave policy, after six months of employment. Employees also receive access to Kindbody fertility and family-building benefits and dedicated leave specialists who help guide you through the entire process.

• Growth & Development: Generous annual stipends for both professional and personal development, empowering you to invest in your continued growth. You’ll also have access to a wide range of internal learning opportunities, ensuring you can build new skills, deepen your expertise, and advance your career with confidence.

• Time Off & Flexibility: We believe that to do your best work, you should get the time you need for rest, rejuvenation and recovery. Drata offers a flexible vacation policy, paid holidays, and other perks to recharge.

This role will receive a competitive base salary, benefits, and stock, typically in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). The applicable salary range for this role is: $197,800 - $267,600.

A variety of factors are considered when determining someone’s leveling and compensation–including a candidate’s professional background and experience. These ranges may be modified in the future and final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed above.