Lead AI Engineer in Leeds

Answer Digital is looking to recruit a Lead AI Engineer to join our Engineering Community and play a vital role in shaping and delivering AI-powered solutions across our large-scale, operationally critical client projects. We have had some big AI wins over the last couple of years, from deploying AI solutions into the NHS, supporting Energy providers to transform how their customer data is processed and more recently, winning a spot on Yorkshire Water's AI Framework. This is a senior, client-facing technical leadership role focused on building production-grade AI systems that deliver measurable impact for our clients.

What you’ll be doing:

• Defining AI solution architectures aligned to client strategy and business outcomes
• Creating AI development roadmaps from proof-of-concept through to production deployment
• Leading the design and build of LLM-based systems, RAG pipelines, agentic workflows and multimodal applications
• Ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, observable and cost-optimised in cloud environments
• Translating complex AI concepts into clear, actionable recommendations for stakeholders
• Mentoring engineers and growing our AI capability within the Engineering Community
• Working closely with senior client stakeholders to ensure AI solutions deliver measurable value (accuracy, latency, cost, UX and adoption)

What you’ll bring to Answer:

• Proven experience leading technical delivery in client-facing consultancy or enterprise environments
• Experience translating business problems into production-grade AI solutions
• Hands-on leadership of cross-functional engineering teams
• Agile software development experience with continuous delivery
• Deep experience working with large language models in production environments, working with major model families such as Llama, Mistral, GPT, Claude and Gemini
• Experience integrating Speech-to-Text and Text-to-Speech models into end-user solutions
• Experience with vector databases such as Pinecone, Weaviate, Chroma, PGVector (or similar)
• Production deployment experience with AWS Bedrock, Azure Foundry or Google Vertex AI

The perks of being @ Answer:

• We’re an Employee-Owned Company. After 12 months – through the Employee Ownership Trust you will be part of the ownership of Answer; a major factor in driving engagement, retention and growth for our people.
• Competitive salary
• Flexible annual leave (buy/sell and carry forward)
• Twice a year income-tax free bonus based on company performance – it’s a reward for being a part of our EOT journey
• Continuous training and development – if you want to learn, we’ll provide the support you need
• Flexible Pension – we match your own contributions up to 5%
• A flexible Healthcare cash plan so you can fund the care you value most
• A packed social calendar including end-of-year party (partners invited) and Summer away days, monthly and quarterly company team socials.
• Parking at Head Offices in central Leeds, plus Cycle2Work & Green Car Lease schemes to help get you here
• The chance to give back – get involved nationally and regionally with partnerships to get people from different backgrounds into tech, as well as lots of charity and community events

Diversity and Inclusion:

At Answer we proudly embrace diversity and inclusion – we want to create a safe environment for everyone to bring their true selves to work. We will do everything we can to support your application. If you require any adjustments to be made to your application (whether that’s support with our interview questions, adjusting how we interview, or financial support with our hiring process) then please speak to Jonny Hiles, TA Lead (jonny.hiles@answerdigital.com).

A bit more about us:

Answer Digital is a highly successful digital transformation consultancy headquartered in Leeds. We’re a company on a fast-growth trajectory with a reputation of delivering large-scale, operationally critical solutions. People are at the heart of everything we do – so much so we’re owned by our people. It sets us apart from most digital businesses you’ll meet and defines our culture and values. Our people are invested in everything we do, because we are invested in them.

Our Interview Process:

We pride ourselves on having a fair but flexible recruitment process, we want to create a platform where you can show us your best. For us, keeping it simple means you can focus on understanding if our people, values and the work we do are right for you. Our typical process can be broken down into 3 stages:

• Recruiter call: This normally lasts 15-30 minutes. We will talk to you about Answer Digital, the type of work we do, and an overview of the role. We’ll ask you some questions about your current situation and why you’re interested in working here. Here, we’d advise asking any "people" questions, anything about our culture, career progression or approach to flexible working.
• Skills based interview: This interview will be with 2 people, normally from the team you’re applying to work with. We can do this stage remote or in person, whichever you’d prefer. This interview will involve questions around your experience, the skills you’ve gained and the work you’ve done. We’ll also ask questions about the role and challenges you might face and how you’d face them. Here, we’d recommend asking questions about the role, the day to day responsibilities and what life in the team is like.
• Cultural/Value interview: This interview will be with 2 of our Leadership team, either our Directors or Capability Leads. It will focus on our culture and values, talking about our values and what they mean to us as well as understanding what values are important to you and how you like to work. This interview is about making sure Answer is right for you, as much as the other way around. Here, we advise you to ask as many questions around our business model, our ambitious growth plans and anything to do with Answer as a business.