Director of IT & Automation - Appen

🏢 Appen · 📍 Remote US · 💼 remote · ⏰ Permanent - Regular Full-time

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Position Summary & Responsibilities

About the Role

Appen is looking for a Director of IT & Automation to lead our IT function and help shape how a modern, AI-native company operates.

This is a senior leadership role combining technical depth, operational judgement and people leadership. You will work closely with the CPTO and senior leaders across the business to align technology, risk, service and investment priorities.

You will build and lead a high-performing team across IT support, enterprise technology and automation, hiring technically strong, proactive people who use AI to improve how they work and creating a culture of ownership, continuous improvement and practical problem-solving.

We want someone who sees AI as a genuine lever for changing how IT operates, not simply another tool to add to the stack. You should be comfortable moving between strategy and execution, getting into the technical detail when a problem requires it.

What You'll Own

IT Leadership & Operations

Set the IT roadmap across enterprise technology, support, security and automation.
Lead IT support, endpoint management and major incident response.
Shape the IT operating model and team as Appen grows.

Enterprise Technology

Own the health, configuration and integration of Appen's core enterprise technology environment.
Provide technical leadership across Microsoft 365, including administration, identity, access and security.
Oversee our broader enterprise technology environment, including Salesforce, Workday, Atlassian, AWS, Databricks and Anthropic, ensuring platforms are well integrated, governed and fit for purpose.

Security & Governance

Own IT's role in SOC 2 and ISO 27001, including controls, audit readiness, evidence and remediation.
Maintain appropriate security, access and endpoint controls across the IT environment.
Identify technology and operational risks before they become incidents.
Establish practical governance for AI use across IT, balancing adoption with security, privacy and compliance.

AI & Automation

Make AI and automation core tools for improving IT operations and employee experience.
Identify opportunities to eliminate manual

🎯 Candidate Preparation Guide For Appen Applicants

Key Role Competencies & Evaluation Highlights

Key Role Focus:

Focuses on global scalability, meticulous management of distributed human-in-the-loop workforces, and AI data quality control.

📋 Preparation Priorities (Key Areas to Clarify):

1. Ignoring the ethical and operational complexities of managing global contractor workforces
2. Treating data labeling as a purely automated problem without human nuance
3. Inability to handle massive volume scale and asynchronous communication challenges

✨ Recommended Role Alignment Hook:

I build robust operational frameworks that ensure AI training data is ethical, scalable, and exceptionally high-fidelity.

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