Director of Technology and AI

Fireclay Tile is here to revolutionize the tile and design industry. By implementing an innovative digital platform paired with unmatched artisan-crafted products and client service, we've made it easier than ever to specify and purchase beautiful, sustainable tile sourced and handcrafted in the US. Our tireless commitment to innovation, transparency, and sustainability has not gone unrecognized. We aim to grow 25-35% annually and are the first tile company recognized as a B Corp for how we use Business as a Force for Good. With an innovative product, an ambitious team, and an inspiring mission, we're changing the way you think about tile. Come join the makers who support the dreamers !

Location: Northern California preferred

Team: Two developers, with capacity to build the team over time

Compensation: 160K-180K Base

The Team You'll Work With

You will report to Fireclay's VP of Technology, Dave Meagher , and partner closely with both the VP of Technology and our CEO to shape the next version of Fireclay's technology: a company that runs on AI, end to end.

You will lead a small team of developers building across Salesforce, Google Cloud, Shopify, and our Snowflake data layer. The VP of Technology owns the broader roadmap. You will own the AI rollout across every team, the hands-on engineering leadership, and the applied-AI work that turns that roadmap into durable business value.

The Challenge

Fireclay is AI-forward, and we want someone to own the AI rollout across the entire company, from the factory floor to marketing to sales.

We envision a near future where every knowledge worker at Fireclay uses AI all day long, as naturally as email. Production planners, customer service, sales reps, designers, marketers, and finance should each have AI woven into how they work, backed by systems they trust. Getting there is your job.

Fireclay Tile has always used technology to do things differently. We were early to the cloud, and over the last few years we have gone well past experimentation: we now run production AI skills, agents, and internal applications that our teams use every day.

We are a vertically integrated, employee-owned B Corp that makes beautiful, sustainable tile and helps clients carry a project from inspiration through installation. The work is real: complex product data, factories, supply chain, sales, design, customer service, showrooms, installation, finance, and thousands of decisions that need to happen well every day.

Owning AI here means owning more than tools. You will define and run the enterprise architecture, security, governance, and process controls that let AI scale safely across every team. That includes how models and agents access data, who can do what, how work is reviewed, how we audit and observe it, and how we decide what gets built, bought, scaled, or stopped.

This is not a role for an AI futurist who stays at 30,000 feet. You will be in the weeds: mapping work, finding constraints, building solutions, coaching teammates, and holding a high bar for security, quality, and measurable impact.

How We Work

We run our technology team like a software startup inside a manufacturing company. The pace is fast, the team is lean, and shipping matters more than planning decks.

In exchange, you get a lot of autonomy. You will have the room to learn the business deeply, decide where technology and AI can add value, and act on it quickly without waiting on layers of approval.

With AI, the distance between an idea and a working application is now days, not quarters. It is normal here to scope a problem with a business owner on Friday, build the application with AI over the weekend, and put it in front of real users on Monday. We want someone who finds that energizing, and who knows how to move that fast without cutting corners on security, data integrity, or review.

Our Stack

Claude, MCP, custom skills and agents, Google Cloud, Salesforce, Shopify Plus, Front, Dialpad, Slack, Hyros, HubSpot

The Opportunities You'll Have

• Own the AI rollout across every Fireclay team, from production and supply chain to customer service, marketing, sales, and finance.
• Partner with the VP of Technology and the CEO to define the next vision of Fireclay's technology, built on AI.
• Design and run the enterprise architecture for AI: how agents, skills, and applications connect to Salesforce, Google Cloud, Shopify, and Snowflake, and how data flows between them.
• Own AI security, governance, and process control: access and permissions, data privacy, human review, audit trails, observability, and clear ownership for every production workflow.
• Lead, mentor, and grow Fireclay's development team, and raise the bar for how we build.
• Learn Fireclay deeply, from customer journey and order flow through manufacturing, fulfillment, installation, and support, and find the real points of friction, delay, rework, and opportunity.
• Build and ship AI-enabled workflows and applications quickly, often in days, that improve productivity, decision quality, customer experience, revenue, or cost.
• Identify and pursue customer-facing AI opportunities that make it easier to discover, design, purchase, receive, and install Fireclay products.
• Run a disciplined intake and prioritization process. Every meaningful AI investment should have a defined problem, baseline, owner, cost, expected value, success metric, security review, and scale-or-stop decision.
• Make the right build-versus-buy decisions. Use external tools, partners, and emerging models where they create leverage, without creating a fragile or ungoverned stack.

What Success Looks Like Early

• First 30 days: Map Fireclay's stack across Salesforce, Google Cloud, Shopify, and Snowflake, along with current AI use, developer capacity, core data flows, security posture, and highest-friction business processes. Meet the people doing the work, including in the physical operation. Ship something small and useful.
• First 60 days: Present an AI rollout plan for every team, an enterprise AI architecture and governance framework, a capability assessment, and a prioritized 12-month plan. Select two or three high-value use cases with clear owners, baselines, ROI hypotheses, and delivery plans.
• First 90 days: Ship at least one secure, measurable production workflow or application. Put in place an AI investment scorecard, a teammate enablement rhythm, a mentoring plan for each developer, and the technical standards required to scale responsibly.

What Success Looks Like in the First Year

You will have created visible, credible impact, not a slide deck of possibilities.

That means every team is using AI daily in its core work, backed by governed, secure systems. It means measurable cost savings, productivity gains, better decisions, faster developer throughput, or new revenue. It also means our developers have grown noticeably under your leadership, and Fireclay has a clear, shared architecture for an AI-first future.

We will care about token spend, but not in isolation. Every meaningful investment should show a clear return or a credible, measurable path to one.

About You

• You are a builder. You have personally written and shipped production code, and you still want to. You use AI coding tools every day and can take an application from idea to production in days.
• You thrive at startup speed. You are energized by autonomy, comfortable with ambiguity, and bias toward shipping and learning.
• You have deep experience with modern AI application development: agents, MCP and tool use, automations, model selection, evaluation, retrieval, prompt and workflow design, and observability.
• You have designed enterprise architecture, security, and governance for AI or data systems. You know how to give teams powerful tools while controlling access, protecting data, and keeping humans in the loop where it matters.
• You have hands-on experience across a stack like ours: Salesforce, Google Cloud, Shopify, and a cloud data warehouse such as Snowflake. You care more about how systems connect than about any single platform.
• You are a strong mentor to junior developers. You have grown engineers early in their careers through code review, pairing, clear standards, and stretch assignments. You teach them to use AI well, to understand the business behind the ticket, and to own their work end to end. Your team gets better because you lead it.
• You can lead developers while staying close enough to the work to make good technical and product decisions.
• You bring conviction and humility: strong standards, direct communication, curiosity, and a willingness to change your mind when the evidence changes.

The Hiring Conversation

We want to see how you think and how you work, not just what is on your résumé.

Our VP of Technology will share a short video showing how he uses AI and how Fireclay applies it today. As part of the application, every candidate will submit a 3–5 minute Loom or screen recording showing one real way they use AI in their workflow.

Show us the problem you were solving, the tools and inputs you used, what you built or changed, how you checked the work, and the result. Bonus points if it's something you built fast. A sanitized example is welcome; do not share confidential customer, employer, or personal information. We are looking for real judgment and practical leverage, not AI theater.

Why Fireclay?

Beyond the role itself, here’s what makes Fireclay Tile a special place to work:

• Our Mission: We are on a mission to do good by crafting products intentionally, collaboratively, and transparently. We are the makers, who support the dreamers.
• Our Values: We live by Kindness, Honesty, Tread Lightly on the Earth, Measure Twice, Cut Once, and Ganas (Desire).
• Our Commitment: We are accountable to the B Corp standards, prioritizing People and Planet alongside Profit.
• Growth and Innovation: We are committed to "25-35% annual growth" and are revolutionizing the tile and design industry.
• Our Culture: We foster a culture of professional development, ongoing training, and opportunities for growth.
• Our Benefits: We offer a comprehensive compensation package, including medical, dental, vision, a 4% 401(k) match, PTO (non-exempt) or FTO (exempt), sick time, and other perks. Visit Fireclaybenefits.com to view details of our benefits and perks offered.

Serving as a Fireclay Tile Brand Ambassador, representing our core values including:

Kindness Honesty Tread Lightly on the Earth Measure Twice, Cut Once Ganas (Desire)

Accountable to the B Corp standards, we take care of our People and our Planet while turning a Profit.

The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, stock options, and discretionary bonus. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if a teammate receives an offer of employment.

Fireclay provides equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, Fireclay will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please let us know by contacting View email address on click.appcast.io.

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