This job is with eBay, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. At eBay, we're more than a global ecommerce leader - we're changing the way the world shops and sells. Our platform empowers millions of buyers and sellers in more than 190 markets around the world. We're committed to pushing boundaries and leaving our mark as we reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts.

Our customers are our compass, authenticity thrives, bold ideas are welcome, and everyone can bring their unique selves to work - every day. We're in this together, sustaining the future of our customers, our company, and our planet.

Join a team of passionate thinkers, innovators, and dreamers - and help us connect people and build communities to create economic opportunity for all.

Director of Applied Research - AI, Research, & Innovation to lead the design, development, and evolution of our multi-agent AI platform and ecosystem. Reporting to the Chief AI Officer, this role will partner closely with product, research, infrastructure, and developer experience teams to bring agentic AI capabilities from concept to production across eBay's global technology organization.

The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in AI/ML infrastructure, agentic systems, reinforcement learning, and LLM fine-tuning, along with a proven track record of building scalable platforms, fostering innovation, and leading globally distributed engineering and applied science teams.

Partner across product, infrastructure, and research teams to translate innovation into production-grade AI capabilities.



Lead platform development for model training, orchestration, reasoning, and reinforcement learning workflows. Develop robust developer experiences - APIs, SDKs, and self-serve tools to enable agent creation and deployment.

Represent eBay's AI strategy internally and externally, fostering innovation and collaboration across global hubs. PhD in Applied Research, Machine Learning, or related technical field. Extensive experience in AI, ML, and distributed systems, and in senior engineering leadership roles managing large-scale AI or infrastructure teams.

Deep understanding of AI/ML infrastructure-training, inference, pipelines, and orchestration frameworks.

Experience building developer platforms with self-serve APIs, SDKs, and robust documentation. Solid background in cloud and hybrid infrastructure, GPU/TPU scaling, and performance optimization. Proven leadership in hiring, developing, and scaling high-performing technical teams across global hubs.

Experience with fine-tuning and deployment of large foundation models (LLMs, multimodal models). All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, or other legally protected status. [email protected] . We will make every effort to respond to your request for accommodation as soon as possible. to learn more about eBay's commitment to ensuring digital accessibility.

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📌 Sr. Director Applied Research & Innov. (Toronto)
🏢 eBay
📍 Toronto