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Description
Company Overview:
When it comes to IT solution providers, there are a lot of choices. But when it comes to providers with innovative and differentiating end\-to\-end service offerings, there’s really only one: Zones – First Choice for IT.TM
Zones is a Global Solution Provider of end\-to\-end IT solutions with an unmatched supply chain. Positioned to be the IT partner you need, Zones, a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) in business for over 35 years, specializes in Digital Workplace, Cloud \& Data Center, Networking, Security, and Managed/Professional/Staffing services. Operating in more than 120 countries, leveraging a robust portfolio, and utilizing the highest certification levels from key partners, including Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Lenovo, Adobe, and more, Zones has mastered the science of building digital infrastructures that change the way business does business ensuring whatever they need, they can Consider IT Done. Follow Zones, LLC on Twitter @Zones, and LinkedIn and Facebook.
Position Overview:
Zones is seeking an experienced Business Development Manager – AI Solutions to join our Zones Team.
As a Business Development Manager (BDM), you’ll drive awareness of Zones’ capabilities around AI solution offerings. You’ll drive partner sales alignment and work with Regional Sales Leaders and Zones Advanced Technology Executives (ATE) to grow sales opportunities. Zones is looking for talented individuals who are passionate about emerging technologies!
What you’ll do as the Business Development Manager – AI Solutions:
*The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.*
The BDM will drive alignment between the AI Solutions Practice, associated services partners, and Zone’s sales teams. To do this you will:
- The BDM will drive alignment between the AI Solutions Practice, associated services partners, and Zones’ sales teams. To do this you will:
- Communicate and network effectively within identified AI solutions partners.
- Articulate the Zones value proposition to the partners and evangelize how Zones’ offerings align with their strategy and compensation.
- Nurture and grow relationships within the partner organization, keeping a cadence in place in key focus markets including pipeline reviews with sales teams as appropriate.
- Seek partner input on our go\-to\-market strategy and offerings to drive stronger alignment as a go\-to partner.
- Take ownership of partner\-related escalations and issues in cooperation with internal Zones departments.
- Articulate Zones’ value proposition.
- Develop and grow AI services pipeline of qualified opportunities.
- Align to or create go\-to\-markets based on partners’ sales plays and Zones offerings.
- Focus on achieving sales and profit goals.
What you will bring to the team:
- Bachelor’s degree in Business or Technology preferred.
- 2\+ years in business development and/or solution sales with a proven track record of success within the Information Technology space.
- Excellent pipeline development and management skills, with proven success in delivering go\-to\-market strategies and results.
- Strong cross\-group collaboration to drive alignment and teamwork within the partners’ and Zones’ teams.
- Excellent communication skills with solid experience in presenting and delivering key messages to internal and external senior executives and other audiences.
- Understanding of enterprise sales and solutions selling.
- Must be able to accommodate a flexible travel schedule and attend meetings/client visits within the assigned geographic territory and other locations as assigned.
- Manage, maintain, and grow current pipeline.
- Analyze AI industry trends and practices for services and technologies in order to drive enhanced revenue.
- Strategize and push for customer meetings both in person and over the phone to discover and grow new opportunities.
- Lead customer calls and presentations for strategic opportunities and sales trainings.
- Collaborate with operations/project manager to ensure smooth deployments.
- Proactively provide suggestions on new ways to get in front of customers, drive sales and marketing activities, including networking opportunities.
- Attendance at relevant industry conferences.
- Provide expertise on RFQs, RFIs, RFPs, and contractual bids.
Qualified candidates can expect a salary range of $95,000\-$125,000\.
\#LI\-LM1
\#LI\-Remote
Zones offers a comprehensive Benefits package
While we’re committed to providing top\-tier solutions, we’re just as committed to supporting our own team. Our team members enjoy a variety of comprehensive benefits, including medical, dental and vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, voluntary accident, hospitalization and critical illness insurance options, a 401(k) plan with matching provision, and many more. Generally, Zones currently offers paid time off and personal sick leave in compliance to individual state requirements.
At Zones, work is more than a job – it is an exciting career on a global team that is client centric, has a passion for technology, embraces change and lifelong learning in a collaborative culture. And as a Minority Business Enterprise, a Corporate Plus member of the Northwest Minority Supplier Development Council, and an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, our community is just as diverse. If you’re interested in working on the cutting edge of IT innovation, sales, engineering, operations, administration, and more, Zones is the place for you!
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, genetic information, or pregnancy.
Zones participates in E\-Verify. E\-Verify is a system that compares information from a team member’s Form I\-9 to federal records to confirm their eligibility to work in the United States.
Salary Context
This $95K-$125K range is in the lower quartile for AI Product Manager roles in our dataset (median: $185K across 167 roles with salary data).
View full AI Product Manager salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI Product Managers define what AI features get built and why. They translate business problems into ML-solvable tasks, work with engineering to scope model requirements, and own the metrics that determine if an AI feature is working. The role requires a rare combination of technical fluency and product instinct.
Unlike traditional product management, AI PM work involves managing uncertainty at a fundamental level. Your model might work 90% of the time. What happens the other 10%? What's the user experience when the AI is wrong? How do you measure 'good enough' for a probabilistic system? These questions don't have easy answers, and the AI PM is the person responsible for finding them.
Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI Product Manager positions make up 4% of the market. At Zones, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week includes: reviewing model evaluation results with the ML team, defining success metrics for a new AI feature, conducting user research on how customers respond to AI-generated outputs, writing product requirements that include accuracy thresholds and fallback behaviors, and presenting the AI roadmap to leadership. You're the translator between technical capability and business value.
AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.
Skills in Demand for This Role
Technical fluency with ML concepts is essential, though you won't be writing models. Expect to understand training data, evaluation metrics, model limitations, and responsible AI practices. SQL and basic Python are increasingly expected. Experience with A/B testing, data analysis, and product analytics is baseline. Understanding LLM capabilities and limitations is now a core requirement.
The differentiator is AI-specific product thinking: knowing when to use ML vs. heuristics, understanding the cost of training data collection, designing graceful degradation for model failures, and building products that improve with usage data. Experience with AI safety, bias mitigation, and responsible AI deployment is increasingly important.
Strong postings describe specific AI products the PM will own, mention the ML team structure, and talk about measurement methodology. Look for companies that have already shipped AI features. Roles at companies that are 'exploring AI' often mean you'll spend a year defining the strategy before any building happens.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI Product Manager roles pay a median of $217,100 based on 471 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $194,400. This role's midpoint ($110K) sits 49% below the category median. Disclosed range: $95K to $125K.
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.
Zones AI Hiring
Zones has 3 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI Product Manager, AI/ML Engineer. Positions span Albany, NY, US, Chicago, IL, US. Compensation range: $125K - $270K.
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 Product Manager roles include Product Manager, Data Analyst, Technical Program Manager.
From here, career progression typically leads toward Director of AI Product, VP Product, Head of AI.
The most effective path is PM experience plus self-directed AI education. Take Andrew Ng's courses, build a small ML project, and learn enough Python to read model evaluation code. The goal isn't to become an ML engineer. It's to have credibility in technical conversations and to understand what's possible, what's hard, and what's a bad idea.
What to Expect in Interviews
AI interviews typically combine coding challenges (Python-focused), system design questions tailored to the role, and discussions about your experience with relevant tools and frameworks. Strong candidates demonstrate both technical depth and the ability to make pragmatic engineering tradeoffs. Prepare portfolio projects that demonstrate end-to-end capability rather than isolated skills.
When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings describe specific AI products the PM will own, mention the ML team structure, and talk about measurement methodology. Look for companies that have already shipped AI features. Roles at companies that are 'exploring AI' often mean you'll spend a year defining the strategy before any building happens.
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 Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.
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
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