Sr Director Software Engineering - AI & Ontology

Atlanta, GA, US Senior AI Software Engineer

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About This Role

AI job market dashboard showing open roles by category

As Senior Director Software Engineering \- Artificial Intelligence (AI) \& Ontology at Honeywell Technologies, you will be responsible for designing and scaling next\-generation intelligent platforms. This role sits at the intersection of advanced engineering, data/AI strategy, and enterprise architecture, translating complex business and customer challenges into robust, scalable, and explainable AI\-enabled solutions. The Senior Director will be both strategic and hands\-on, setting technical direction while mentoring senior architects and influencing executive stakeholders.

You will report directly to the VP Chief Technology Officer – Forge \& AI and will work out of the Atlanta, GA office on a hybrid work schedule.

YOU MUST HAVE

  • 10\+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including cloud\-native architectures, distributed systems, and modern software engineering practices
  • Hands\-on experience with ontology design, semantic modeling, knowledge graphs, or domain\-driven data models
  • Demonstrated success delivering AI/ML\-powered production systems at scale

Blend of hands\-on technical depth and strategic leadership experience

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US PERSON REQUIREMENTS

Due to compliance with U.S. export control laws and regulations, candidate must be a U.S. Person, which is defined as, a U.S. citizen, a U.S. permanent resident, or have protected status in the U.S. under asylum or refugee status or have the ability to obtain an export authorization.

WE VALUE

  • Bachelor’s and advanced degrees in Computer Science, Engineering, AI, Data Science, or related field
  • Strong background in cloud\-native architectures, distributed systems, and modern software engineering practices
  • Experience with MLOps platforms, model governance, and AI lifecycle management.
  • Familiarity with explainable AI, ethical AI, and regulatory considerations in enterprise environments.
  • Prior experience in industrial, enterprise, or highly regulated domains.

Proven ability to lead senior technical talent and influence across organizational boundaries

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BENEFITS OF WORKING FOR HONEYWELL TECHNOLGIES

In addition to a competitive salary, leading\-edge work, and developing solutions side\-by\-side with dedicated experts in their fields, Honeywell Technologies employees are eligible for a comprehensive benefits package. This package includes employer subsidized Medical, Dental, Vision, and Life Insurance; Short\-Term and Long\-Term Disability; 401(k) match, Flexible Spending Accounts, Health Savings Accounts, EAP, and Educational Assistance; Parental Leave, Paid Time Off (for vacation, personal business, sick time, and parental leave), and 12 Paid Holidays. For more information, Click Here .

*Honeywell Technologies is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will be considered without regard to age, race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, marital status, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, nationality, sex, religion, or veteran status. Learn more about inclusion and engagement:* *Click Here*

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Technical \& Architectural Leadership

  • Define and own the end\-to\-end software architecture for AI/ML\-enabled platforms, emphasizing ontologies, semantic models, and knowledge representation.
  • Lead the design and implementation of scalable, production\-grade AI/ML systems, including data pipelines, model lifecycle management, and inference services.
  • Drive the development and adoption of enterprise ontologies and domain models to enable interoperability, reasoning, explainability, and data reuse across platforms.
  • Ensure architectural alignment across cloud, edge, and on\-prem deployments.
  • Establish engineering best practices around model governance, explainable AI (XAI), data quality, security, and compliance.

AI/ML Strategy \& Execution

  • Partner with product, data science, and business leaders to identify high\-value AI/ML use cases and translate them into executable engineering roadmaps.
  • Guide teams on model selection, training strategies, feature engineering, and MLOps, ensuring solutions are robust, ethical, and scalable.
  • Evaluate and integrate emerging AI technologies, frameworks, and tools with a pragmatic, value\-driven mindset.

Stakeholder \& Enterprise Influence

  • Serve as a trusted technical advisor to senior leaders, clearly communicating complex architectural and AI concepts to both technical and non\-technical audiences.
  • Influence enterprise standards and long\-term technology strategy related to AI, data, and software engineering.
  • Collaborate closely with global engineering, security, legal, and compliance teams to ensure responsible AI deployment.

Honeywell helps organizations solve the world's most complex challenges in automation, the future of aviation and energy transition. As a trusted partner, we provide actionable solutions and innovation through our Aerospace Technologies, Building Automation, Energy and Sustainability Solutions, and Industrial Automation business segments – powered by our Honeywell Forge software – that help make the world smarter, safer and more sustainable.

Role Details

Company Honeywell
Title Sr Director Software Engineering - AI & Ontology
Location Atlanta, GA, US
Category AI Software Engineer
Experience Senior
Salary Not disclosed
Remote No

About This Role

AI Software Engineers build the applications and systems that AI models run inside. They own the API layers, data pipelines, frontend integrations, and infrastructure that turn a model into a product users interact with. Every AI company needs engineers who can build the software around the AI.

The challenge is building reliable systems around inherently unreliable components. Models are probabilistic. They'll give different answers to the same question. They hallucinate. They're slow. They're expensive. Your job is to build an application layer that handles all of this gracefully while delivering a product that users trust and enjoy.

Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI Software Engineer positions make up 7% of the market. At Honeywell, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

AI Software Engineer roles are among the most numerous in the AI job market. Every company deploying AI needs software engineers who understand AI integration patterns. The demand is broad, spanning startups to enterprises, across every industry adopting AI capabilities.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week includes: building API endpoints that serve model inference with caching and fallback logic, designing the data pipeline that feeds context to a RAG system, implementing streaming responses in the frontend, debugging a race condition in the async inference pipeline, and optimizing database queries for the vector search layer. It's full-stack engineering with AI at the center.

AI Software Engineer roles are among the most numerous in the AI job market. Every company deploying AI needs software engineers who understand AI integration patterns. The demand is broad, spanning startups to enterprises, across every industry adopting AI capabilities.

Skills in Demand for This Role

Python (52% of roles) Aws (28% of roles) Azure (22% of roles) Rag (21% of roles) Gcp (15% of roles) Pytorch (15% of roles) Prompt Engineering (14% of roles) Kubernetes (13% of roles)

Full-stack engineering skills with AI integration experience. Python and TypeScript are the most common requirements. You'll need to understand API design, database architecture, and how to build reliable systems around probabilistic outputs. Experience with streaming, async processing, and caching patterns is increasingly important as real-time AI applications proliferate.

Knowledge of vector databases, embedding APIs, and LLM integration patterns (function calling, structured outputs, retry logic) differentiates AI software engineers from general software engineers. Understanding cost optimization (caching strategies, model routing, batched inference) is valuable since inference costs can dominate application economics.

Strong postings describe the product you'll be building, the AI integration patterns you'll work with, and the scale requirements. Look for companies that have existing AI features and need engineers to improve and expand them, not companies that are 'planning to add AI' someday.

Compensation Benchmarks

AI Software Engineer roles pay a median of $218,500 based on 729 positions with disclosed compensation. Director-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $274,554.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($287,500) and Research Engineer ($272,100). By seniority level: Entry: $110,000; Mid: $194,400; Senior: $227,400; Director: $274,554; VP: $241,000.

Honeywell AI Hiring

Honeywell has 2 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Software Engineer. Based in Atlanta, GA, US.

Location Context

Across all AI roles, 15% (635 positions) offer remote work, while 3,657 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,650 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (1,335 roles, $265,000 median); Los Angeles (708 roles, $214,112 median).

Career Path

Common paths into AI Software Engineer roles include Software Engineer, Full-Stack Developer, Backend Engineer.

From here, career progression typically leads toward Staff Engineer, AI Architect, Engineering Manager.

If you're a software engineer, you're already 80% there. Learn the AI integration patterns: RAG, streaming inference, function calling, structured outputs. Build a project that demonstrates you can wrap an AI model in a production-quality application with proper error handling, caching, and user experience. That's the portfolio piece that gets you hired.

What to Expect in Interviews

Technical screens look like standard software engineering interviews with an AI twist. Expect system design questions about building reliable applications around probabilistic models: handling streaming responses, implementing retry logic for API failures, and designing caching strategies for LLM outputs. Coding rounds test standard algorithms plus practical integration patterns like async processing and rate limiting.

When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings describe the product you'll be building, the AI integration patterns you'll work with, and the scale requirements. Look for companies that have existing AI features and need engineers to improve and expand them, not companies that are 'planning to add AI' someday.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 4,317 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 138 entry-level, 2,071 mid-level, 1,655 senior, and 453 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (635 positions). The remaining 3,657 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($287,500 median, 34 roles); Research Engineer ($272,100 median, 227 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($244,000 median, 23 roles).

AI Software Engineer roles are among the most numerous in the AI job market. Every company deploying AI needs software engineers who understand AI integration patterns. The demand is broad, spanning startups to enterprises, across every industry adopting AI capabilities.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 4,317 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (3,004), Data Scientist (345), AI Software Engineer (309). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.

The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (138) are outnumbered by mid-level (2,071) and senior (1,655) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 453 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (635 positions), with 3,657 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.

AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $215,000. Top-quartile roles start at $266,300, and the 90th percentile reaches $320,790. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.

Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $287,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $145,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.

The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,249 postings), Aws (1,224 postings), Azure (938 postings), Rag (915 postings), Gcp (660 postings), Pytorch (640 postings), Prompt Engineering (624 postings), Kubernetes (559 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on 729 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI Software Engineer positions is $218,500. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Full-stack engineering skills with AI integration experience. Python and TypeScript are the most common requirements. You'll need to understand API design, database architecture, and how to build reliable systems around probabilistic outputs. Experience with streaming, async processing, and caching patterns is increasingly important as real-time AI applications proliferate.
About 15% of the 4,317 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
Honeywell is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from AI Software Engineer positions include Staff Engineer, AI Architect, Engineering Manager. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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