Director of AI Strategy - Engineering Productivity

About Zscaler Zscaler accelerates digital transformation to ensure our customers can be more agile, efficient, resilient, and secure. As an AI-forward enterprise , we are constantly pushing the envelope, leveraging the world’s largest security data lake to power our cloud-native Zero Trust Exchange platform. This innovation protects our customers from cyberattacks and data loss by securely connecting users, devices, and applications in any location. Here, impact in your role matters more than title and trust is built on results. We say, impact over activity. We seek innovators who actively use AI to amplify their impact and who thrive in an environment where we leverage intelligent systems to stay ahead of evolving threats. We believe in transparency and value constructive, honest debate —we’re focused on getting to the best ideas, faster. We build high-performing teams that can make an impact quickly and with high quality. To do this, we are building a culture of execution centered on customer obsession , collaboration, ownership, and accountability. We value high-impact, high-accountability with a sense of urgency where you’re enabled to do your best work and embrace your potential. If you’re driven by purpose, thrive on solving complex challenges, and want to be part of the team that’s helping to secure the AI age, we invite you to bring your talents to Zscaler and help shape the future of cybersecurity. Role We are looking for a Director of AI Strategy - Engineering Productivity to join our Engineering Operations team. This is a hybrid role based out of our San Jose, CA office (3 days a week in office), reporting to the Senior Director, Technical Program Management, Zero Trust Exchange. In this role, you will define and champion the company's AI strategy for engineering productivity by evaluating, securing, and integrating AI-driven developer tools and CI/CD pipeline enhancements. You will drive widespread engineering efficiency by replacing fragmented team practices with a unified enterprise governance model, measurable business metrics, and a structured budget for AI adoption. What you’ll do (Role Expectations) Define and lead the Enterprise AI Strategy by developing a unified engineering governance model to standardize AI workflows, prompting techniques, and QA frameworks Lead the hands-on evaluation, selection, and rollout of AI developer tools while driving consensus to consolidate vendors and manage a dedicated productivity budget Architect AI-enhanced CI/CD pipelines by integrating AI agents and advanced automation while establishing business-oriented metrics to measure tangible impact Partner cross-functionally with Security and IT teams to ensure all AI tools are deployed safely, addressing data privacy and protecting proprietary codebases Exercise cross-functional influence to build consensus around the AI roadmap, moving the company from isolated experimentation into a structured master plan Who You Are (Success Profile) You act like an owner. Your passion for the mission fuels your bias for action. You operate with integrity because you genuinely care about the outcome. You adapt to what’s needed, navigating seamlessly between high-level strategy and hands-on execution. You are a high-trust collaborator. You are ambitious for the team, not just yourself. You embrace our challenge culture by giving and receiving ongoing feedback, knowing that candor delivered with clarity and respect is the truest form of teamwork and the fastest way to earn trust. You are driven by innovation. You have a deep curiosity for how things work and are energized by solving complex technical challenges. You believe in the power of technology to accelerate transformation and are always looking for a better, more secure, and scalable way. You think at scale. You connect your day-to-day work to the larger company mission and think globally. You build solutions, processes, and teams that are not just effective today but are built to last