[Remote] Director of Artificial Intelligence (hands-on)

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Syndesus, Inc. is an established AI software company with a strong patent portfolio and Fortune 500 clients. They are seeking a Director of Artificial Intelligence to lead their Montreal hub, focusing on building a team and executing their AI/ML strategy while remaining hands-on in solution architecture and coding. Responsibilities • Define and execute the company's AI/ML strategy across traditional ML, deep learning, and generative AI • Build and lead the Montreal team, with input on every hire • Develop production-grade models: tree ensembles, time-series, transformers, LLMs, agentic workflows • Design robust MLOps pipelines for training, deployment, and monitoring • Translate complex ML concepts for customers and executives • Contribute to the company's patent portfolio Skills • Deep expertise in applied ML: scikit-learn, XGBoost, PyTorch/TensorFlow, and statistical modeling • Exposure to GenAI and agentic frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar) • Production deployment experience—you've taken models from notebook to production and kept them running • 1-2+ years of formal people management or technical leadership with hiring responsibility • Strong communication skills for customer-facing work • Bilingual (French/English) required • Must be based in Quebec • Physics-informed ML or experience in energy/industrial applications • Insurance or financial services domain experience • PhD in a quantitative field Benefits • Performance bonus • Meaningful equity participation • Competitive benefits package Company Overview • Syndesus builds engineering teams in Canada for VC-backed startups in the US, and offers Professional Employer Organization (PEO) services for US companies seeking to employ workers remotely in Canada. It was founded in 2015, and is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, CAN, with a workforce of 11-50 employees. Its website is Apply tot his job Apply tot his job