Job Description

Basic Qualifications

Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant work experience is required plus a minimum of 15 years of demonstrated leadership; or Master's degree plus a minimum of 13 years of demonstrated leadership.

Responsibilities for this Position

GDMS operates one of the largest enterprise AI deployments in the defense industry — not as a pilot program, not as a proof of concept, but deeply embedded in how our workforce operates every day. Adoption is broad, active, and accelerating. The governance challenge here is not how to get people to use AI, it is how to continue to keep pace with people who already are.

We are looking for a practitioner who has governed AI at scale, in a high-velocity environment, and who understands that the job is to eliminate friction, not add it. You will evolve this function, including from clean-sheet if needed, to design the systems that let our engineers and program teams move at speed, and establish GDMS as an intellectual authority in agentic AI oversight — at one of the most consequential missions in the industry.

If your instinct is to build review boards, this role is not for you. If your instinct is to build self-service systems that make the right path the fast path, we want to talk.

As the Director, Agentic AI Governance, you will lead the invention and publication of agentic AI governance frameworks, shaping how GDMS approaches autonomous AI at scale. You will own the design of governance mechanisms that measurably reduce decision cycle times, define risk management practices for multi-agent systems, and build competitive advantage through governance that enables rather than constrains. Partnering across Lines of Business and Functions — and in close collaboration with our CISO and IT security organization — you will drive the governance maturity needed for future mission success while keeping GDMS’s AI velocity ahead of the market.

Key Responsibilities

Governance Architecture & Acceleration

• Design and operate lightweight, tiered governance mechanisms that clear AI use cases at speed — with decision turnaround calibrated to risk level, not organizational inertia
• Build self-service governance tooling that enables employees to adopt and extend AI capabilities without individual review for low-risk applications
• Establish risk tiering frameworks for autonomous decisions and define oversight levels that scale with deployment volume
• Define escalation thresholds and human-in-the-loop requirements for agentic AI deployments
• Govern the full AI lifecycle — from deployment through ongoing monitoring, model refresh, and retirement — with continuous rather than point-in-time oversight

Agentic AI & Multi-Agent Systems

• Define and deliver governance models for multi-agent systems and orchestrated agent ecosystems
• Develop governance frameworks for customer- and mission-facing agents, ensuring explainability, accountability, and consent
• Define risk management practices specific to autonomous decision-making, including failure mode analysis and behavioral boundaries for agent actions

Strategy & Thought Leadership

• Create multi-year strategic roadmaps for AI governance aligned to business velocity, mission outcomes, and evolving regulatory expectations
• Author research reports and governance frameworks on agentic AI; establish GDMS as a published intellectual authority in the field
• Design and publish transformative governance frameworks, maturity models, and operational toolkits adopted across the enterprise
• Identify and evaluate emerging governance challenges before they become blockers to deployment
• Translate evolving regulatory requirements — domestic and international — into clear, actionable internal policy without creating bureaucratic drag

Cross-Enterprise Collaboration

• Build relationships across GDMS Lines of Business and Functions to shape and deliver governance requirements
• Partner closely with the CISO and IT security organization on AI-specific risk; integrate governance frameworks with existing security controls without duplicating ownership
• Engage executive leadership, cross-functional peers, and external stakeholders with authority and credibility

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in the AI/ML domain with a focus on governance, deployment enablement, or responsible AI — in environments where speed of adoption was itself a business objective
• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative discipline such as Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or Mathematics
• Demonstrated track record of accelerating AI adoption at scale— measurable reductions in governance cycle time, increases in use case throughput, or AI deployment velocity improvements across a large organization
• Experience governing AI in high-velocity commercial environments where governance latency is itself a competitive variable — technology companies, financial services, cloud providers, or equivalent
• Applied, hands-on experience building and operating agentic AI systems, autonomous architectures, and AI pipelines
• Deep technical understanding of AI/ML including traditional ML, deep learning, multi-modal models, and agentic AI architectures — sufficient to assess risk with precision rather than defaulting to caution
• Proven experience designing and implementing risk tiering frameworks, lightweight review mechanisms, and self-service governance systems
• Proven success leading large-scale, complex AI/ML initiatives with cross-functional stakeholders in matrixed organizations
• Strong demonstrated technical writing skills tailored to technical, regulatory, and executive audiences
• Executive presence with the ability to influence senior leadership, cross-functional peers, and external stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree (M.S. and/or Ph.D.) in a relevant technical or research discipline
• Background in AI research and emerging technologies
• Experience building a governance function from the ground up — defining scope, building a team, and establishing an operating model
• Experience implementing technology-enabled governance solutions across multiple industries or global markets
• Familiarity with defense mission contexts and the ability to operate effectively within them

#LI-Hybrid

Salary Note

This estimate represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience and other factors (geographic location, etc.). Actual pay may vary. This job posting will remain open until the position is filled.

Combined Salary Range

USD $251,250.00 - USD $271,860.00 /Yr.

General Dynamics Mission Systems (GDMS) engineers a diverse portfolio of high technology solutions, products and services that enable customers to successfully execute missions across all domains of operation. With a global team of 12,000+ top professionals, we partner with the best in industry to expand the bounds of innovation in the defense and scientific arenas. Given the nature of our work and who we are, we value trust, honesty, alignment and transparency. We offer highly competitive benefits and pride ourselves in being a great place to work with a shared sense of purpose. You will also enjoy a flexible work environment where contributions are recognized and rewarded. If who we are and what we do resonates with you, we invite you to join our high-performance team!

Equal Opportunity Employer / Individuals with Disabilities / Protected Veterans