Senior Manager of AI/ML

Description

Whisker is redefining what it means to live with cats—designing intelligent systems that remove friction, elevate the everyday, and celebrate the quiet brilliance of feline companionship. Today, Litter-Robot leads the category. Tomorrow, an entire ecosystem that expands what’s possible for cats and the people who love them. We believe the future is feline. And we’re imagining that future today.

We work onsite 4+ days a week, with our team based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and Juneau, Wisconsin. Our team of 600+ passionate pet people thrives on collaboration, innovation, and the occasional office cameo from a four-legged friend.

What You’ll Do:

The Senior Manager of AI/ML leads the AIRE team in building and deploying intelligent systems that power Whisker’s connected product ecosystem. This role defines and executes the AI strategy across pet recognition, behavioral modeling, predictive insights, and intelligent in-app experiences. Partnering closely with Software Engineering, Product, and Data teams, this leader ensures machine learning solutions are scalable, production-ready, and directly aligned to customer and business impact.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Leads the design, development, and delivery of software solutions aligned with company strategy, ensuring quality, scalability, and on-time execution.
• Manages engineering resources and budget effectively, balancing innovation with operational discipline
• Defines and executes the MLCV roadmap aligned with product and business strategy
• Identifies high-impact opportunities to apply machine learning and deep learning across our connected ecosystem
• Balances experimentation with production-grade deployment and maintenance
• Leads development of supervised and unsupervised learning systems, including behavioral modeling, anomaly detection, and predictive analytics
• Drives innovation in pet recognition, sensor fusion, and intelligent in-app experiences
• Ensures models move efficiently from research to production
• Establishes scalable MLOps practices for model training, validation, deployment, and monitoring
• Partners with backend and platform teams to ensure infrastructure supports ML workloads
• Defines standards for model performance, explainability, and reliability
• Works closely with data engineering and backend teams to ensure high-quality training datasets and feature pipelines
• Champions responsible data usage and model integrity
• Defines metrics that measure real-world AI impact
• Recruits, mentors, and grows a high-performing AI/ML team
• Fosters a culture of experimentation, rigor, and continuous learning
• Develops future AI technical leaders within the organization
• Establishes and upholds best practices for secure, scalable, and efficient software development
• Partners cross-functionally with Product, Operations, and business leaders to translate requirements into impactful solutions
• Drives adoption of modern technologies and architectural standards to maintain technical leadership
• Leads incident response and critical issue resolution to minimize disruption and protect customer experience
• Defines and monitors engineering KPIs to measure performance and drive ongoing improvement
• Represents Engineering in executive forums, providing clear updates on progress, risks, and strategic opportunities
• Will perform additional responsibilities as needed

Requirements

What You’ll Bring:

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, or related field and / or equivalent years of experience
• 8+ years of experience in AI/ML development
• 3+ years in technical leadership
• Strong expertise in Python and modern ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, or equivalent)
• Experience building and deploying ML models in production environments
• Deep understanding of supervised, unsupervised, and deep learning methodologies
• Experience with cloud-based ML infrastructure (AWS preferred)
• Strong collaboration skills across software, product, and hardware teams
• Proven ability to translate complex ML concepts into business and product impact
• Maintains confidentiality of proprietary information
• Ability to maintain a professional atmosphere in a fast-paced environment with numerous interactions and interruptions
• A high degree of initiative, self-motivation, and ability to motivate others
• Ability to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships with Team Members and colleagues
• Comfortable with office pets (cats, dogs) 

Benefits & Perks:

Join a tenacious, inventive company that empowers team members to chart their own path, lead by grounding decisions in the “why”, and has a strong sense of empathy and openness to new perspectives. Be a part of exciting growth, work with incredible people, and create tomorrow’s pet products—plus a whole lot of extras. You will also be provided with:

• Premium Medical/Dental/Vision insurance
• Paid parental leave
• Whisker Parents Program
• 1 day "pawternity" leave for new pet adoption
• Pet Insurance Discount
• 401K match
• Flexible spending accounts
• Company-paid short-term disability and life insurance
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Generous paid time off
• 14 Paid Holidays
• Top of the line equipment
• Pet-friendly office
• Whisker products and swag
• Continuing education Support
• On-site gym with Peloton
• Referral program

Statement of Inclusivity:

We believe different perspectives make Whisker better and strive to create a place where everyone has equal opportunities to thrive.

Please ensure to regularly check your email spam folder for any communication from Whisker to avoid missing important updates regarding your application status.

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