Lead AI Engineer in Basildon

Location: Remote, but requirement to meet up once a month for in-person collaboration day, UK based.

About Akixi: Akixi is a leading provider of SaaS analytics solutions for cloud-based communication platforms, helping service providers and enterprises gain actionable insights from their telephony and collaboration data. Our solutions span Microsoft Teams, Cisco BroadWorks, Webex Calling, and CRM integrations — delivering real-time and historical analytics that improve customer experience and business performance. We are expanding our platform to include advanced AI capabilities — voice and chat assistants, intelligent analytics, and predictive insights.

Job Summary & Purpose: Own and drive Akixi’s AI and ML strategy — from concept and architecture through hands-on prototyping and deployment — to embed intelligence into Akixi’s products and analytics platforms. As the Lead AI Engineer, you will define and execute Akixi’s AI roadmap, combining leadership of architecture and engineering practice with hands-on development of prototypes and production features. You’ll partner with Product, Data, and Platform Engineering to design and integrate AI-driven capabilities such as voice/chatbots, natural-language analytics, and predictive models. This role balances strategic technical direction with hands-on implementation, ensuring Akixi’s AI initiatives deliver tangible business and customer outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the definition and delivery of Akixi’s AI strategy and technology roadmap.
• Architect scalable AI solutions integrated into Akixi’s SaaS analytics platform.
• Prototype, develop, and integrate AI-driven components such as chatbots, voice assistants, ML models, and LLM-based analytics.
• Apply prompt engineering and model-tuning techniques to optimize chatbot and LLM behaviour.
• Conduct research, proof-of-concepts, and feasibility studies for emerging AI technologies.
• Collaborate with Product Management to scope AI features and align them with business goals.
• Partner with Data Engineering to operationalize models, manage training data, and implement monitoring and retraining pipelines.
• Work closely with Development, DevOps, and QA teams to ensure smooth CI/CD integration and deployment of AI components.
• Establish standards for AI code quality, ethics, and data governance.
• Mentor engineers working on AI-related projects, fostering technical excellence and innovation.
• Evaluate external AI vendors, tools, and frameworks for adoption or integration.
• Stay ahead of developments in AI/ML, LLMs, and applied analytics, translating trends into practical opportunities for Akixi.

Required Skills & Experience:

• 4+ years in software engineering, with at least 3+ years focused on AI/ML or data-driven product development.
• Proven expertise in developing and integrating AI solutions such as chatbots, voicebots, ML models, or LLM-based analytics.
• Strong proficiency in Python (preferred) and/or JavaScript/TypeScript.
• Hands-on experience with AI frameworks (e.g. TensorFlow, PyTorch, and/or LangChain) and LLM APIs (e.g. Azure OpenAI, OpenAI API, Anthropic, and/or AWS Bedrock).
• Experience with Microsoft Bot Framework, Dialogflow, or similar conversational-AI platforms.
• Deep understanding of prompt engineering and fine-tuning of large language models.
• Strong grounding in ML concepts — supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning.
• Familiarity with cloud AI/ML services (e.g. Azure Cognitive Services, AWS SageMaker, and/or GCP Vertex AI).
• Experience deploying and monitoring AI workloads in CI/CD environments (e.g. Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes, and/or AWS).
• Ability to design data pipelines, APIs, and microservice integrations supporting AI features.
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and cross-team collaboration skills.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to communicate complex AI concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences, including senior leadership.
• Proven ability to provide technical leadership across AI initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience leading and mentoring a small team while remaining hands-on in design and coding.

Desirable Skills & Experience:

• Experience with call/contact-centre analytics, Microsoft Teams Graph API, or telephony platforms (e.g. BroadWorks, Webex Calling).
• Knowledge of data governance, model ethics, and MLOps practices.
• Exposure to data visualization and predictive analytics for customer-experience metrics.
• Advanced degree in AI, ML, Data Science, or related discipline.

Why Akixi: At Akixi, you’ll play a pivotal role in transforming how businesses understand and act on communication data. You’ll define and deliver the intelligence layer of a platform used by thousands worldwide — in an environment that values innovation, experimentation, and technical depth. We offer a collaborative culture, hybrid flexibility, and the opportunity to lead meaningful, high-impact AI initiatives from vision to production.