The Role
As Head of Operations Engineering at Linktree, you’ll own the unglamorous, load-bearing work that decides whether our AI ambitions actually hold up in production — the pipelines, evaluations, monitoring, and cost controls that turn promising demos into features 70+ million people can rely on.
The role has two halves. Outward, you own the platform: how models and prompts are versioned, how we know a feature works before and after launch, and how we keep inference cost and latency from quietly eating the margin. Inward, you own enablement: getting Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Support genuinely using AI in their day-to-day work, with guardrails that people follow because they make sense, not because they’re mandated.
You’ll report to Rob Erdin and work across the Data, Engineering, and Product leadership group, with the latitude to decide what we build, what we buy, and what we leave alone. Most of all, you’ll help Linktree achieve our mission: to empower anyone to curate and grow their digital universe.
What You’ll Own
- Own the platform that AI runs on at Linktree — pipelines, model and prompt versioning, evaluation harnesses, monitoring, and rollback.
- Set the standard for how we evaluate AI features before and after launch, so we ship things that measurably work.
- Keep AI economics sustainable: own inference cost, latency, and reliability as first-class metrics with clear ownership.
- Drive internal AI adoption — tooling, agent workflows, and enablement that changes how Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Support actually work.
- Establish proportionate governance around data handling, vendor risk, and pre-launch evaluation without slowing teams down.
- Partner with Rob and the Data leadership team to sequence AI investment against the roadmap and the financial model.
- Make the build-vs-buy calls, and be honest about what we should not build.
- Mentor engineers and analysts working on AI surfaces, and raise the operational bar across the org.
Who We’re Looking For
- 5–7 years in ML/AI engineering, data platform, or AI operations, including hands-on ownership of production systems.
- Experience running AI or ML systems in production — pipelines, model and prompt versioning, evaluation, monitoring, incident response.
- Working fluency with modern LLM tooling and the practical realities of cost, latency, context limits, and non-deterministic output.
- A track record of driving internal AI adoption: enablement, tooling, and getting teams to change how they work.
- Strong build-vs-buy judgment and comfort making pragmatic calls with incomplete information.
- Ability to set proportionate guardrails around data handling, vendor risk, and pre-launch evaluation.
- Excellent communication — you can explain AI trade-offs to engineers and to executives in the same week.
- Ability to work from our Melbourne or Sydney offices on a hybrid basis, or remotely within AU.
Linktree is committed to providing a fair and competitive compensation package including cash, equity, and benefits.
P.S. If you don’t tick every box in this listing, please don’t rule yourself out. We take pride in inclusion and hiring incredible human beings with great potential over ticking boxes – so if this role resonates with you, hit that apply button!
Our Story
We’re on a mission to empower anyone to curate, grow, and monetize their digital universe. We created the “link in bio” category — and we’re just getting started. From creators, artists, and entrepreneurs to global brands, we’re redefining how people connect with their communities, showcase their content and promote products — all in one link.
Today, a community of 70+ million use Linktree, including icons like Adidas, TikTok, the UN Environmental Program, The NFL, Manchester United, World Central Kitchen, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and Selena Gomez. With 48,000 new accounts created every day, Linktree is the fastest-growing leader in our space.