IT Manager - AI Platform Engineering & Data Science

Ferguson is a provider of supplies and services across commercial, residential, industrial, and infrastructure industries. The IT Manager, AI Platform Engineering & Data Science leads platform engineering, cloud capabilities, DevSecOps, and MLOps initiatives while managing a team that enables scalable AI, machine learning, software delivery, and data science across the enterprise.

Responsibilities:

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of platform engineers, architects, and technical specialists
• Define and execute the platform engineering, cloud, and data science roadmap in support of Ferguson's AI and technology strategy
• Design, build, and optimize scalable, secure, and reliable platform capabilities across Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and hybrid-cloud environments
• Partner with AI Engineering, Data Science, Product, and Architecture teams to enable the development, deployment, and operation of AI and machine learning solutions
• Drive DevSecOps, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, and platform reliability standards to improve delivery speed, quality, and operational efficiency
• Own and enhance MLOps and data science platform capabilities, supporting model development, training, deployment, and monitoring at scale
• Establish engineering standards, architecture patterns, API strategies, and reusable platform services that accelerate software delivery
• Lead platform modernization initiatives, including cloud adoption, developer experience improvements, automation, and legacy technology retirement
• Manage project delivery, budgets, vendor relationships, and team capacity to ensure successful execution of critical initiatives
• Supervise platform performance, security, availability, and scalability while proactively identifying and mitigating risks
• Build strong partnerships with business and technology leaders to align platform investments with organizational priorities
• Stay ahead of emerging cloud, AI, data, and engineering technologies to drive innovation and continuous improvement

Requirements:

• candidates must reside in the Eastern or Central time zones
• Occasional travel to Ferguson headquarters in Newport News, VA, and other company locations, including Tampa, FL, is expected
• or equivalent experience
• Must have at least 5 years of hands-on experience in platform engineering
• Experience in machine learning implementation and data analytics enablement is required
• You should have broad knowledge of how platform capabilities support integration and innovation across different business domains
• Must have prior experience directly leading engineering or technical talent, including performance management and career development for direct reports
• Must have direct experience in software programming with Java and/or Python, along with Software Architecture and Engineering expertise
• Must have experience in secure software delivery (DevSecOps) and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), and pipeline development
• Must have hands-on experience architecting and operating platform services on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) as the primary hyperscaler, with working knowledge of Azure to support hybrid-cloud workloads and legacy system integration
• Must have experience creating operational dashboards, telemetry configurations and alerting templates for end-to-end flow of data services using APM and Data Logging solutions such as AppDynamics, DataDog etc
• Solid understanding and experience implementing software design patterns and modern standards
• Must be a hands-on software engineer able to work alongside a cross-functional team of software engineers, software architects, data scientists, and software quality engineers as needed
• Demonstrates high aptitude, initiative, and self-drive — proactively finds opportunities to improve the platform and data science tooling rather than waiting for direction, and leads technical work hands-on rather than purely delegating
• Strong leadership and interpersonal relationship building skills
• Strong written communication skills with the ability to deliver compelling presentations
• Bachelor's degree in information technology, computer science or related field preferred
• experience with offshore/onsite consultants preferred
• Experience enabling data science and ML workflows using cloud-native tooling (e.g., Vertex AI, BigQuery, or equivalent feature-store, pipeline-orchestration, and model-serving constructs) strongly preferred