AI Engineer Grade "F

Position: AI Engineer - (Grade "F")
End Date Tuesday 21 July 2026

Salary Range £92,701 - £109,060

We support flexible working –  for more information on flexible working options

Flexible Working Options Job Share

Job Description Summary .

Job Description JOB TITLE : AI Engineer SALARY: £92,701 - £119,966

LOCATION:

Manchester

HOURS:

Full time WORKING PATTERN:
Hybrid, 40% (or two days) in our Manchester office location

What you'll be doing

Developing the upcoming era of autonomous AI for colleagues and customers is our focus - ensuring safety, security, and scalability. As a Lead Software Engineer, you'll set technical direction and lead multiple teams to design, build and run AI Agents on Google Cloud, blending open-source tools with GCP native services. You'll stay hands-on when needed and help grow engineering capability - all while delivering outcomes at pace in a regulated environment.

Working closely with Engineering, Product and Architecture teams, you'll define the strategy and technical direction for agentic AI services, establishing standards, patterns and quality expectations. You'll lead and develop multiple engineering teams, fostering a high-performing, inclusive culture while delivering resilient and scalable solutions.

You'll design, build and operate AI Agents on Google Cloud using services such as Vertex AI, Cloud Run, GKE, Big Query and IAM, integrating securely with enterprise systems and following modern engineering practices including CI/CD, automated testing, SRE and observability.

You’ll have responsibility for the full solution lifecycle, ensuring platforms are secure, compliant, resilient and cost-effective through robust guardrails, model evaluation, Fin Ops and effective security controls. You’ll also drive engineering excellence by developing reusable components and standards, leading vendor engagements, simplifying infrastructure and influencing senior stakeholders across the platform.

Why join us?

We’re on an exciting journey to transform our Group and the way we’re shaping finance for good. We’re focusing on the future, investing in our technologies, workplaces, and colleagues to make our Group a great place for everyone.

What we're looking for Proficiency in Python and Type Script, with experience delivering production services (APIs, event-driven systems, microservices), ideally on GCP.Proven technical leadership of large, multi-team deliveries - setting strategy, making sound architectural decisions and enabling teams to deliver ds-on experience with agentic AI: building LLM-powered applications/agents, tool use, orchestration, retrieval (RAG), prompt and safety engineering, evaluation and telemetry.

Proficient knowledge of cloud-native engineering: containers (GKE/Cloud Run), Terraform/IaC, continuous integration/continuous deployment, automated quality assurance, observability, optimizing performance, and managing incidents.

Solid knowledge of security, privacy and compliance in regulated environments; confident working with Risk, Security and Legal teams.

Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to simplify complex concepts into clear, outcome-focused narratives.

And any experience of these would be great

Experience with Vertex AI Agent Builder/Agentspace, Lang Graph, multi-agent patterns or agent-to-agent protocols.

Knowledge of data governance and model risk practices in financial services.

Exposure to Azure/AWS or cross-cloud patterns.

Experience building communities of practice and engineering guilds.

We know that great talent comes from many backgrounds. Whilst this job advert may reference specific years of experience, we recognise that skills are developed in many ways. So, if you have relevant, transferable experience, we encourage you to apply.

This is a place for youOur ambition is to be the leading UK business for diversity, equity and inclusion, supporting our customers, colleagues and communities. We're committed to creating an environment in which everyone can thrive, learn and develop.

We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and establish a dedicated Working with Cancer initiative.

We…