Machine Learning Engineering Manager

Machine Learning Engineering Manager

Location: Sintra, Lisboa, Portugal

Zendesk’s people have one goal in mind: to make Customer Experience better. Our products help more than 125, 000 global brands (Airbnb, Uber, Jet
Brains, Slack, among others) make their billions of customers happy, every day.

The AI/ML Platform team is at the forefront of this mission. We build the foundation that powers every AI-driven experience at Zendesk, enabling product teams to build, evaluate, and deploy large language model (LLM) applications reliably and at scale.

We're looking for an Engineering Manager to lead the next wave of Gen
AI infrastructure at Zendesk. This includes our internal LLM Proxy, benchmarking framework, data annotations, and agentic workflow orchestration tools. You’ll empower Zendesk’s ML/AI teams by building secure, optimized, and friendly ML platforms that scale across use cases and products.

You’ll work with different partners (Engineering, Product, Architects and Tech Leads) to ensure your team's roadmap is aligned with company strategy and the team is shipping architecturally sound software at a regular cadence.

What you get to do every day

• Lead a high‑performing team of AI/ML platform engineers to deliver the core infrastructure powering LLM‑based applications.
• Own the design, rollout, and optimization of Zendesk’s LLM Proxy, enabling safe, observable, and efficient access to multiple foundation models.
• Collaborate with existing ML/AI leadership to continually improve software delivery and service reliability.
• Partner with applied ML, product, and infrastructure teams to align platform investments with AI roadmap priorities.
• Establish strong engineering practices around observability, reliability, security, and cost monitoring.
• Foster a team culture that emphasizes mentorship, inclusion, and technical excellence.

What you bring to the role

• Proven experience managing high‑performing engineering teams in the ML/AI or infrastructure space.
• Deep understanding of LLM systems, Gen
  AI applications, or ML/AI platform components such as vector databases, serving layers, and orchestration tools.
• Experience owning the full lifecycle of an ML/AI platform, from early design to production deployment.
• Strong communication skills and an ability to influence technical direction across teams and partners.
• A pragmatic mindset: balancing innovation with scalability and performance in enterprise environments.
• A dedication to continual development.
• Collaborative, upbeat work ethic where you can take ownership and have fun.

What our tech stack looks like

• Python
• AWS (servers)
• LLM vendors: Open
  AI, Anthropic, Google, Llama
• Infra: Kubernetes, Docker, Kafka, AWS

What we offer

• Full ownership of the projects you work on.
• Large impact on product development.
• Team of passionate people.
• Exciting projects and opportunity to implement your own ideas.
• Opportunities to learn and grow.
• Flexible working hours.
• Professional development funds.
• Comfortable office and remote setup.
• Choice of laptop and equipment.
• Premium medical insurance and private life assurance.

Hybrid working

In this role, we offer a hybrid experience designed at the team level, giving you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration while also providing flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. The exact office schedule will be determined by the hiring manager.

Equal Opportunity

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to fostering global diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment or employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Zendesk is an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here. Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, please send an e‑mail to peopleandplaces@zendesk.com with your specific accommodation request.