Director - AI

Coats Digital

Website: coatsdigital.com
Job details:

Coats Digital provides industry-leading software solutions designed to optimize operations for fashion, apparel, and footwear manufacturers. Its technology helps businesses improve efficiency, enhance transparency, and support sustainability across the supply chain.

With a strong foundation in industry expertise, Coats Digital works with manufacturers and brands worldwide, offering digital tools that streamline processes from design to delivery.

Operating globally and headquartered in the UK, Coats Digital focuses on delivering innovative solutions that drive measurable improvements in productivity, cost management, and sustainability.

For more information, visit: www.coatsdigital.com

Role Purpose:

At Coats Digital, we build SaaS applications for the fashion industry, helping brands and manufacturers with planning, costing, and optimising their operations. AI is central to the next generation of our products.

As Director, Software Engineering (AI), you will own the AI and machine learning portfolio for Coats Digital, leading the development of new AI-powered products and driving the integration of AI capabilities into our existing SaaS applications. You will manage a team of engineers and testers, with a mandate to grow the function by building out specialist AI/ML roles as the portfolio matures.

This role combines strategic leadership with technical depth. You will define Coats Digital’s AI roadmap, make build-vs-buy decisions on AI technologies, and work hands-on enough to prototype, evaluate approaches, and set technical direction. Today, the focus is on LLM integrations with services such as Azure OpenAI. Over time, you will build the team’s capabilities in classical machine learning, including custom model development for domain-specific problems in the apparel industry.

You will collaborate closely with the other Software Engineering Directors, embedding AI features into their product portfolios while delivering your own.

Key Responsibilities:

Education & Qualifications:

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 years in a leadership role managing engineering teams.
• Proven experience delivering AI/ML-powered products or features into production.
• Strong understanding of large language models, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation and LLM integration patterns.
• Familiarity with classical machine learning techniques and when to apply them (e.g. supervised learning, time-series forecasting, classification).
• Experience evaluating and adopting cloud AI services (e.g. Azure OpenAI, Azure Machine Learning).
• Demonstrated ability to define and drive technical strategy across a product portfolio.
• Strong stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to influence across business functions.
• Experience building and growing engineering teams, including hiring for specialist roles.
• Excellent communication skills, able to articulate AI concepts to non-technical audiences.

Desirable

• Experience with MLOps practices, model versioning, monitoring, and retraining pipelines.
• Familiarity with data engineering and data pipeline design.
• Experience with .NET and/or modern web application stacks.
• Azure certifications (e.g. Azure AI Engineer Associate, Azure Solutions Architect Expert).
• Fashion industry or manufacturing experience.
• Experience working with distributed or remote engineering teams.
• Knowledge of supply chain concepts such as demand planning, production scheduling, procurement, or inventory optimisation, whether from garment, apparel, or any other manufacturing or retail context. Candidates who can connect AI solutions to supply chain problems will stand out.

At Coats Digital, we are dedicated to driving innovation, excellence, and digital transformation in the textile and apparel industry. Our collaborative and diverse environment empowers every team member to thrive while making a real impact.

If you are passionate about revolutionizing the industry with cutting-edge technology and eager to join a global leader with a rich heritage and a future-focused mindset, we invite you to take the next step in your career with us.

Apply now and be part of a dynamic team shaping the digital future of textiles.

Click on Apply to know more.