VP-Distinguished Engineer of Generative AI Engineering

SLATE At Slate, we’re building safe, reliable vehicles that people can afford, personalize and love—and doing it here in the USA as part of our commitment to reindustrialization. The spirit of DIY and customization runs throughout every element of a Slate, because people should have control over how their trucks look, feel, and represent them.

About SLATE

• As the VP – Distinguished Engineer of Generative AI Engineering at Slate Automotive, you will be the founding architect of our GenAI capability.
• We are not just building an electric truck — we are building an AI-native company.
• You will design, build, and ship the Generative AI systems that transform how we engineer vehicles, run manufacturing, and serve customers.
• You are a player-coach.
• You will recruit and grow a world-class team of GenAI engineers, but you will stay in the code — reviewing PRs, making architecture calls, and shipping alongside your team.
• Deploy GenAI agents across vehicle engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, software development, and GTM — converting human-driven workflows into AI-driven ones that run faster and cheaper.
• Construct the Context Layer — a living knowledge base of agentic, human, robotic, and enterprise decisions — and the unified Data Layer that trains purpose-built models on real Slate decisions.
• IP is our long-term competitive advantage.

WHY JOIN TEAM SLATE?

• At Slate, we’re fueled by grit, determination, and attention to detail.
• The start-up spirit of ingenuity and resourcefulness move our business forward.
• Slate fosters a culture of excellence, innovation, and mutual respect, and is motivated by shared principles.

Responsibilities

• you will write code, make architectural calls, and lead by example.
• You will build and lead a lean, high-leverage team of GenAI engineers, MLOps engineers, and applied scientists — and personally stay in the code — to solve challenges no one in the auto industry has cracked yet.
• YOU WILL DO Build the GenAI Stack from Scratch: Architect and ship the end-to-end GenAI platform — context layer, data layer, model serving, agent frameworks, and evaluation pipelines — on a modern cloud foundation.
• Take GenAI beyond the laptop — partner with Vehicle Engineering, Manufacturing, and Quality teams to embed AI into the factory floor, design tooling, and supply chain, upgrading traditional auto manufacturing from the inside.
• Establish the engineering culture, standards, and practices that make Slate a destination for world-class AI talent — and that make our GenAI output measurably better than the industry.
• Proven track record taking GenAI from prototype to production — including evaluation frameworks, guardrails, observability, and continuous improvement loops.

Requirements

• YOU BRING 12+ years of engineering experience, including 3+ years building and shipping production GenAI systems (LLM-based applications, agents, RAG pipelines), with 5+ years in a senior technical leadership capacity.
• Deep hands-on experience with LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini), open-source model deployment, vector databases, agent orchestration frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar), and prompt engineering at scale.
• Experience fine-tuning and training purpose-built models for domain-specific tasks.
• Familiarity with the tradeoffs between hosted APIs, open-source models, and custom training for cost, latency, and IP reasons.
• Solid grounding in modern data stacks (Snowflake, Databricks, dbt) and cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure).
• Comfortable reasoning about cost, latency, and data architecture as first-class constraints.
• BS required; MS or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field preferred — but exceptional track record beats pedigree every time.

Pay

RANGE The compensation for this position is the range Slate reasonably and in good faith expects to pay for the position taking into account the wide variety of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions, including job-related knowledge; skillset; experience, education and training; certifications; work location; and other relevant business and organizational factors. $222,431.00 - $370,719.00 Base Pay Range (Annual) Additional Compensation and Benefits: Slate offers a wide range of competitive benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability insurance, vacation, and 401k.

The successful candidate may also be eligible to participate in the equity program and/or a discretionary annual incentive program, subject to the rules governing such programs.

Safety First Delight Customers One Team Relentless Improvement Fast, Frugal, and Scrappy Respectful Collaboration Positive Legacy WE WANT TO WORK WITH PEOPLE THAT REFLECT THE COMMUNITIES IN WHICH WE OPERATE. Slate is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, parental status, cultural background, organizational level, work styles, tenure and life experiences. Or for any other reason. Slate is committed to providing reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [email protected].