Senior Director, Applied Data Science and AI

About Equip 

Equip is the leading virtual, evidence-based eating disorder treatment program on a mission to ensure that everyone with an eating disorder can access treatment that works. Created by clinical experts in the field and people with lived experience, Equip builds upon evidence-based treatments to empower individuals to reach lasting recovery. All Equip patients receive a dedicated care team, including a therapist, dietitian, physician, and peer and family mentor. The company operates in all 50 states and is partnered with most major health insurance plans. Learn more about our strong outcomes and treatment approach at www.equip.health.

Founded in 2019, Equip has been a fully virtual company since its inception and is proud of the highly-engaged, passionate, and diverse Equisters that have created Equip’s culture.  Recognized by Time as one of the most influential companies of 2023, along with awards from Linkedin and Lattice, we are grateful to Equipsters for building a sustainable treatment program that has served thousands of patients and families.

About the role

As the Senior Director of Applied Data Science & AI, you will sit at the intersection of clinical excellence and cutting-edge technology. In this pivotal leadership role, you will spearhead our efforts to revolutionize how eating disorders are treated in a virtual environment. You will lead two high-impact verticals –Applied Data Science and AI Transformation– to build intelligent data products that directly improve patient outcomes and optimize our internal operations. As a technical leader, you will be comfortable with delegating, mentoring, and diving into code.

Whether it’s building agentic workflows to scale operations, utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) to reduce administrative burden for clinicians, developing recommendation engines for personalization of care, forecasting demand to optimize the workforce, or developing predictive models for clinical decision support, your work will be the engine behind our mission to provide world-class eating disorder care virtually at scale.

Responsibilities

• Strategic Vision: Partner with the SVP of Data, Insights, & AI and other cross-functional leaders to define the roadmap for AI and ML. Collaborate as a peer with other data, product, and engineering leaders to ensure a cohesive data & technology strategy.

• Engineering Leadership: Lead a world-class AI/ML organization, including data scientists, AI/ML engineers, and MLOps. Own the end-to-end delivery of AI products using modern practices.

• GenAI Strategy and Best Practices: Define methods and best practices for GenAI implementation, including RAG architectures, prompt optimization, and hallucination mitigation, specifically tailored for clinical accuracy.

• Clinical Decision Support: Architect AI powered workflows, statistical and machine learning models, and decision trees that assist our clinical team in providing evidence-based, personalized treatment for patients.

• AI Transformation: Drive organizational productivity by identifying and executing high-ROI AI automation opportunities across all departments. Build the foundations that enable the successful implementation of AI including knowledge graphs, RAG, prompt and skills library, MCP servers, and agents.

• Governance & Safety: Partner with compliance team to implement HIPAA/CMS-aligned governance, automated guardrails, and model observability.

• Change Management: Ensure successful adoption and ROI through effective communication, achieving department and enterprise support, and thoughtful change management.

• Executive Influence: Lead "value realization" efforts, translating complex technical KPIs into business-driving narratives for stakeholders and clinical partners.

• Technical Mentorship: Provide deep-stack guidance on model behavior, failure-mode analysis, and iterative improvement based on production feedback and data drift.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Math, Statistics, or a related field.

• 10+ years in AI/ML engineering with 4+ years in senior leadership overseeing multiple teams.

• Deep expertise in LLMs (RAG, grounding, retrieval), traditional ML (classification, regression, unsupervised learning) and statistics (causal inference, multilevel models).

• Experience building high-stakes AI systems within regulated frameworks (HIPAA, CMS) where reliability and safety are non-negotiable.

• Hands-on experience with modern tech stacks (Python, Node.Js, Typescript, LLMs, LangChain, n8n, vector databases, PyTorch/TensorFlow, AWS services) and a commitment to enforcing extensible, production-ready code.

• Ability to lead a room, align cross-functional teams, and clearly articulate the "why" behind AI investments to non-technical audiences.

Benefits

Time Off:

• Flex PTO policy (3-5 wks/year recommended) + 11 paid company holidays.

Medical Benefits:

• Competitive Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, and AD&D insurance.

• Equip pays for a significant percentage of benefits premiums for individuals and families.

• Maven, a company paid reproductive and family care benefit for all employees.

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP), a company paid resource for mental health, legal services, financial support, and more!

Other Benefits

Work From Home Additional Perks:

• $50/month stipend added directly to an employee’s paycheck to cover home internet expenses.

• One-time work from home stipend of up to $500.

Physical Demands

Work is performed 100% from home with limited travel for team meetings. This is a stationary position that requires the ability to operate standard office equipment and keyboards as well as to talk or hear by telephone. Sit or stand as needed.

At Equip, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) are woven into everything we do. At the heart of Equip’s mission is a relentless dedication to making sure that everyone with an eating disorder has access to care that works regardless of race, gender, sexuality, ability, weight, socio-economic status, and any marginalized identity. We also strive toward our providers and corporate team reflecting that same dedication both in bringing in and retaining talented employees from all backgrounds and identities. We have an Equip DEIB council, Equip For All; also referred to as EFA. EFA at Equip aims to be a space driven by mutual respect, and thoughtful, effective communication strategy - enabling full participation of  members who identify as marginalized or under-represented and allies, amplifying diverse voices, creating opportunities for advocacy and contributing to the advancement of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging at Equip.

As an equal opportunity employer, we provide equal opportunity in all aspects of employment, including recruiting, hiring, compensation, training and promotion, termination, and any other terms and conditions of employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, familial status, age, disability, weight, and/or any other legally protected classification protected by federal, state, or local law. 

Our dedication to equitable access, which is core to our mission, extends to how we build our "village." In line with our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB), we are dedicated to an accessible hiring process where all candidates feel a true sense of belonging. If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete your application, interview, or perform the essential functions of a role, we invite you to reach out to our People team at [email protected].

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