AI Engineering Lead

Overview

We are seeking an AI Engineering Lead to sit at the top of our client’s delivery structure. This role bridges strategic leadership and hands‑on delivery, providing day‑to‑day technical direction to a team of consultants and ensuring high‑quality outcomes across multiple client environments.

You will remain deeply involved in solution design and build, while also shaping ways of working, mentoring engineers and consultants, and supporting pre‑sales activity to secure and expand engagements.

• Location: Hybrid, United Kingdom (UK‑wide flexibility; occasional London presence a few days per month when required)
• Salary: £115,000 - £125,000 per year (DOE)
• Notice periods: Longer notice periods (including up to 6 months) can be considered for the right candidate

• Lead end-to-end delivery of AI/ML and GenAI programmes: discovery, architecture, build, deployment and operationalisation.
• Act as the senior technical authority for clients, translating complex concepts into clear defined strategies for senior non‑technical stakeholders.
• Own solution quality: engineering standards, code reviews, model governance, security, and delivery assurance.
• Provide technical leadership and coaching; build progression frameworks and mentoring for consultants.
• Drive pre‑sales: shape propositions, run technical workshops, produce SOW inputs, estimates
• Partner with stakeholders across Data Services to deliver integrated outcomes (e.g., BI and analytics alongside AI solutions).

• Platform‑agnostic engineering mindset; able to work across varied client stacks.
• Experience with cloud AI services and MLOps/LLMOps (e.g., Azure AI Foundry, AWS Sage Maker and/or Bedrock).
• Strong software engineering practices:
  Python, APIs, containerisation, CI/CD, IaC, testing, observability and production support.
• Modern ML/GenAI approaches: feature engineering, model training, evaluation, RAG, prompt engineering, guardrails, and responsible AI.
• Data engineering fundamentals: pipelines, data quality, governance, and working with structured/unstructured data.

• Demonstrable hands‑on technical delivery at senior level (not purely advisory).
• Strong senior stakeholder management; able to adjust communication style for technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Proven experience leading multi‑disciplinary teams and mentoring others.
• Pre‑sales experience with measurable impact (pipeline contribution, proposals, or deal support).
• Right to work in the United Kingdom.