Transportation Director of Artificial Intelligence
🔍 United States, California, Irvine
At HDR, our employee-owners are fully engaged in creating a welcoming environment where each of us is valued and respected, a place where everyone is empowered to bring their authentic selves and novel ideas to work every day. As we foster a culture of inclusion throughout our company and within our communities, we constantly ask ourselves: What is our impact on the world?
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Each and every role throughout our organization makes a difference in our ability to change the world for the better. Read further to learn how you could help make great things possible not only in your community, but around the world.
Primary Role
The Director of AI – Transportation is a newly established, high-impact leadership position within our Transportation Business Group (TBG). This role is responsible for defining and implementing the strategic vision for artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities across the TBG, ensuring that AI-driven solutions are integrated into our portfolio of transportation projects and services. You will collaborate with TBG leadership, corporate IT groups, and applied technology teams to scale AI solutions, develop best practices, and ensure the AI program becomes a core, revenue-generating pillar for HDR’s transportation practice.
The primary focus of this role includes:
- Strategic AI Vision & Roadmap: Drive the creation and execution of a multi-year AI roadmap aligned with TBG objectives and Technology Vision
- Program Development & Leadership: Oversee the AI program’s growth, including talent acquisition (Data Scientists, MLOps, Cloud AI Engineers), budgeting, stakeholder engagement, and prioritization of AI projects.
- Collaboration & Coordination: Partner with TBG business class leads, project teams, and ITG to enable AI-driven project delivery, integrating AI seamlessly into planning, design, and operations workflows.
- Governance & Best Practices: Establish AI standards, QA/QC frameworks, MLOps processes, data governance, and risk mitigation approaches that ensure scalable, secure, and compliant AI deployments.
- Client & Market Interface: Work closely with existing and prospective clients to identify AI opportunities in transportation, develop innovative proposals, and position HDR as a leader in AI-driven solutions within the consulting Architecture & Engineering industry.
Success in this role requires proven experience delivering AI-based solutions for transportation projects, strong collaboration across technical and leadership teams, and the ability to articulate complex AI concepts in practical, outcome-focused terms. You will report to the TBG Technology Director and collaborate heavily with TBG market sector directors, business class leaders, and corporate technology groups.
Primary Responsibilities
In this role, we’ll count on you to:
Develop and Oversee TBG AI Strategy
- Define a comprehensive AI vision and roadmap for the Transportation Business Group.
- Identify AI opportunities in areas such as digital twins, computer vision, predictive analytics, and generative AI that are aligned with client needs and industry trends.
Coordinate AI Implementation Across TBG
- Collaborate with internal business class AI leads, corporate data architects, IT infrastructure teams, and external technology vendors to implement robust AI solutions.
- Drive adoption of standardized methodologies for AI project scoping, model development, QA/QC, and deployment to ensure reliability and repeatability of project outcomes.
Advance AI Governance & Best Practices
- Collaborate on the creation of AI development policies, including data privacy, security, and compliance with regulatory frameworks impacting transportation projects.
- Establish processes to monitor AI model performance, manage version control, and orchestrate continuous retraining (MLOps) to maintain high model accuracy and reliability.
Foster AI Talent & Organizational Readiness
- Provide leadership and mentorship to a growing AI team, guiding the professional development of Data Scientists, MLOps Engineers, and domain-specific AI SMEs.
- Partner with TBG leadership to identify priority hires, align resource allocation, and cultivate an environment where AI innovation can thrive.
Client Engagement & Growth
- Actively participate in key pursuits and project teams requiring AI expertise, ensuring successful delivery of AI-based scopes of work.
- Support market-facing activities by presenting AI capabilities, assisting with proposals, and representing HDR’s AI expertise at conferences, webinars, and other industry forums.
Measure & Communicate AI Value
- Track business impact metrics (e.g., project efficiency, reduction in delivery time, new revenue generated through AI services) to demonstrate tangible outcomes.
- Ensure transparent and consistent communication of AI goals, progress, and success stories to leadership, staff, and external stakeholders.
Additional Responsibilities
- Maintain 70% utilization through active project contributions, demonstrating both high-level strategy and hands-on involvement in AI-based tasks.
- Serve as a liaison between TBG and HDR’s company-wide AI Task Force, ensuring alignment of TBG-specific AI governance with enterprise standards.
- Identify high-value AI partnerships with universities, industry consortia, and technology vendors to expand HDR’s AI ecosystem.
Qualifications
Education:
- Minimum of a Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Information Science, Systems Administration, or similar related field.
Experience:
- Minimum of 5 years of proven experience delivering custom AI solutions for transportation-related projects (e.g., computer vision for asset management, predictive analytics for maintenance, generative AI solutions for project management, etc.).
- Minimum of 7 years of combined experience in the consulting architecture & engineering industry, demonstrating an understanding of the market environment and client expectations.
- Demonstrated track record in leading AI-focused project teams, coordinating with diverse stakeholders, and effectively integrating AI solutions into large-scale engineering or planning projects.
Technical Expertise:
- Proficiency with modern AI/ML libraries, cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP), MLOps pipelines, data privacy/security best practices, and relevant programming frameworks.
- Familiarity with AEC industry standards, design software (e.g., MicroStation, Autodesk), and digital delivery workflows is highly desired.
Leadership & Communication:
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present complex AI concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong organizational and problem-solving skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects, resources, and priorities in a fast-paced environment.
- Committed to HDR’s values of integrity, collaboration, and innovation in providing high-quality professional services to our clients.
- Demonstrated ability to work cooperatively with teams across different business classes, geographies, and technical domains.
- Attitude and commitment to being an active participant in our employee-owned culture.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience evaluating emerging AI technologies (e.g., advanced large language models, generative AI frameworks, integrated digital twin solutions) for transportation applications.
- Familiarity with data governance, IP ownership, and contract language to protect AI innovation and manage vendor/partnership risks.
- Past involvement in shaping AI strategy or digital transformation initiatives at the corporate or business group level.
- Participation in relevant industry committees, conference presentations, or AI-related publications in the transportation field.
- Must be able to prioritize, delegate and foster the development of high-performance teams to lead/support an environment driven by customer service and teamwork
- Experience with implementing data sets, data compliance, implementing data catalog, and curating data
- Experience using statistical computer languages to manipulate data and draw insights from large data sets.
- Knowledge of a variety of machine learning techniques and their real-world advantages or drawbacks.
- Experience working with and creating data architectures including data warehouse, data lake, and data lakehouse
- Knowledge of advanced statistical techniques and concepts along with experience with associated applications
- Manipulating, organizing, and analyzing complex, high-volume, high-dimensionality data from varying sources and reporting these in application business intelligence or reporting tools
- Understanding statistical or numerical methods application, data mining or data-driven problem solving
- Familiar with common software/tools utilized in data management / analysis and experience with distributed data/computing tools
- Minimum of 5 years of experience working in data architecture structuring, evaluating technology, manipulating data sets and building statistical model
- A bachelor's degree in statistics, mathematics, computer science, economics, or another quantitative field
- Working knowledge and experience with metadata management, master data management, data quality, data lake and analytical platforms
- Demonstrating thought leadership level abilities in the use of statistical modelling, algorithms, data mining and machine learning algorithms
- Strong oral and written communication skills
- Excellent organizational / analytical skills and ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously, while meeting deadlines
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office products
What We Believe
HDR is our company. Together, we build on each other's life experiences and perspectives to make great things possible every day. This shapes our collaborative culture, encourages organizational trust and connects us closer to the clients and communities we serve.
Our Commitment
As employee owners, we all have a role in creating an inclusive environment where each of us is welcomed, valued, respected and empowered to bring our authentic selves to work every day.
Our eight Employee Network Groups (Asian Pacific, Black, Hispanic/Latino(a), LGBTQ+, People with Disabilities, Veterans, Women, Young Professionals) help create a sense of belonging and foster a supportive environment where everyone is empowered to engage and contribute. Each group has an executive sponsor and is open to all employees.
