Lead AI Engineer

Salary: £85,000 - 95,000 per year

• Strong software engineering background, ideally in backend or full-stack development.
• Commercial experience designing, building and deploying AI/LLM-powered applications into production.
• Experience integrating LLMs, APIs and retrieval systems into software products.
• Strong understanding of AI architecture, including model selection, evaluation, reliability and performance.
• Experience making technical decisions about scalability, infrastructure and cost.
• Ability to take technical ownership, influence architectural decisions and mentor other engineers.
• Experience with RAG, tool calling, LLM orchestration and evaluation frameworks is particularly relevant.
• Exposure to cloud AI services such as AWS Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry or Google Vertex AI is relevant.
• A background in TypeScript or Python is useful; strong software engineering fundamentals and practical experience delivering AI solutions are the main focus.

• Take ownership of AI development and shape its technical direction across our organisation.
• Develop AI-powered features hands-on, taking them from concept through to production.
• Make technical decisions on LLM integration, retrieval systems, model selection and wider system architecture.
• Ensure AI solutions are reliable, scalable and commercially viable.
• Focus on AI evaluation, monitoring, security and cost management.
• Establish AI engineering capability and standards across the business.
• Mentor existing engineers and help develop their AI capabilities.

• AI
• AWS
• Azure
• Backend
• Cloud
• LLM
• Python
• RAG
• Security
• TypeScript

More:

We are an established, product-led technology business investing in AI, with an ambitious roadmap of new platform features and capabilities. Our platform makes a meaningful difference to peoples everyday lives by delivering valuable, personalised experiences, and we aim to make it more intelligent, accessible and effective through AI. This Lead AI Engineer role offers the opportunity to influence architecture and shape how we develop and deliver AI, working alongside an experienced engineering team. It is a hands-on technical leadership role with no direct reports initially. The position is based in Gateshead, with one to two days per week in the office, and offers a salary of up to £95,000.

last updated 46 week of 2026