Lead AI Engineer

London (Hybrid – minimum 3 days in the office)

An exciting opportunity for a hands-on Lead AI Engineer to join a growing technology business undergoing an AI-first transformation.

This is a newly created role where you'll lead a small engineering team while remaining hands-on with coding, architecture and technical decision-making. Working closely with senior leadership, you'll help shape engineering strategy, drive AI adoption across the development function, and build a modern product engineering culture focused on speed, innovation and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a small engineering team.
• Drive AI-assisted software development and engineering best practice.
• Remain hands-on with coding, architecture and code reviews.
• Improve existing systems, tooling and development processes.
• Build secure, AI-ready data foundations.
• Work closely with stakeholders to rapidly deliver new features.
• Support the growth of the engineering team through future hiring.

About You

• Strong hands-on software engineering background.
• Experience with technologies such as .NET, Java, Python or TypeScript.
• Practical experience using AI coding tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Codex or similar.
• Previous experience leading or mentoring developers.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, APIs and modern engineering practices.
• A proactive, product-focused mindset with excellent stakeholder communication skills.