Director of Technical Deployment & Operations

About Safari AI
Safari AI's, formerly known as curbFlow, Vision AI technology provides its clients the ability to auto-measure their physical operations using their own IP cameras. There are over a billion IP cameras deployed in the world, and Safari AI's mission is to convert them to more valuable, real-time measurement tools so they can collect business-critical data like pedestrian and vehicle counts for retail and QSR's, guest tracing for commercial real estate, staff engagement in hospitality, and queue times and throughput for live entertainment, to name a few of our clients' use cases.
Enterprise clients include Taco Bell/Yum Brands, NYC's largest 7-11 franchisee, Goodwill, Brightline, Merlin Entertainments (owner of Legoland) and JBG Smith, developer of Amazon's HQ2.
Safari AI is venture funded by leading VC's General Catalyst and Initialized Capital (Garry Tan) and has recently raised another round of funding.
Leadership & Culture
Safari AI is founded by a former Y Combinator founder with a meaningful exit under his belt. The company has operated as a distributed team since its founding in 2018 with team members living throughout North America, with hub offices in New York, Washington DC-area and Vancouver.
About You And How You Succeed At Safari AI
You're excited about deploying products and services in a wide open market with little competition and no heavyweights. You have a bias toward action when you are stuck but are not afraid to ask for help when you need to. You're eager to test new ways of doing things and can take advantage of the freedom an early stage startup can afford you. You are eager to engage with engineering, operations and clients on a daily basis to figure out how to deploy faster, more efficiently and reliably.
About the Role: Director of Technical Deployment & Operations
As the company scales up its Enterprise client base globally, this position will be responsible for taking the client handoff from Sales and making sure Safari AI delivers a reliable and consistent product and service in a timely manner. This leader will be measured on 1) rate of successful deployments and 2) average time to activation. Some deployments have customized aspects or global reach that will need special attention and potentially travel to the client. This position will inherit two high-functioning team members and will have budget to hire at least one more team member in 2023.
What you'll be working on a weekly basis
Leading, organizing and excuting the activation of our Vision AI solution to enterprise clients remotelyAssessing any customized needs of each activation and marshaling the resources to ensure a timely and successful deploymentWorking with the client's staff and third party contractors to deliver our software in order to enable our SaaSManaging off-the-shelf IoT device configuration, testing and shipping from our Washington DC-area office to activation sites (you don't need to be based in DC)Coordinating and helping test API integrations with client, engineering and product teams, as necessaryHanding client off to Client Success team following activation, and re-engaging upon expansion and re-delivery of additional servicesProviding Operations and CEO an updated quarterly team budget
Requirements for the role
At least 7 years experience activating and managing complex SaaS or Hardware as a Service deploymentsSuperior verbal and written communication skillsProven project and delivery management skills and experienceExperience managing a small- to medium-sized distributed teamExperience activating Enterprise-level customersResident and valid work visa in either US or Canada with valid passportAbility and willingness to travel for high priority activations
The Director of Technical Deployment & Operations will be a management level role at the company and report directly to the Founder & CEO.Why bet on Computer Vision and Safari AI? 1. Huge industry hiding in plain sight: auto-measuring physical activity at scale 2. Large chasm between customer knowledge and market availability, i.e. customers don't know what is available in the market3. No clear leader; everyone is small and unbranded (i.e. no Amazon or Google in the room to compete with)4. The tech is very modular, allowing Safari AI and its customers to invent whole new use cases on a regular basis5. Safari AI has developed the tech and data pipelines over three years and invested several million dollars and is now ready to scale6. Safari AI is already emerging as the market leader in auto-measuring with CV by working with customers like Merlin Entertainment, Taco Bell/Yum!, Goodwill, JBG Smith, City of Washington DC and Brightline to name a few.