AI Technical Lead

Birketts is a full service, UK Top 50 law firm. With a heritage spanning 160 years, we have more than 700 lawyers and legal professionals and over 600 staff based in Bristol, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Ipswich, London, Norwich and Sevenoaks. We advise businesses, government and public sector organisations and individuals in the UK and internationally across four principal practice groups: Real Estate, Corporate Services, Dispute Resolution and Private Client.

The AI capability sits within Birketts’ Information Technology function, working closely with Product Development, Knowledge Management, and Learning. This role leads hands-on delivery of priority items rather than owning all engineering capacity. Please note that this job profile is not an exhaustive list of duties but merely an outline of the key components of the role. You may be required by your line manager to take on additional responsibilities when requested.

This role is well suited to a hands-on technical lead who enjoys building and improving products in partnership with product management and users. You will be able to translate business needs into secure, auditable and integrated solutions, and you will be comfortable delivering in a matrixed model, bringing others along through coaching, documentation and shared patterns. You will be comfortable coding as part of delivery, not only producing guidance and patterns.

• Proven experience delivering production-grade software, workflow or automation solutions in an enterprise environment, with hands-on build and delivery responsibility.
• Strong experience integrating systems and data sources into coherent workflows (API-led integration, events and/or data pipelines).
• Hands-on software development capability, with proficiency in at least one mainstream language used for enterprise API integration and automation (e.g., C#/.NET, Python); able to design, build, test and release small services/integrations.
• Practical experience delivering AI-assisted workflow features into production, including validation/testing and monitoring.
• Understanding of common AI delivery patterns and controls.
• Good cloud experience (preferably Azure) and understanding of secure delivery practices (identity, access control, audit logging, monitoring and operational readiness).
• Working knowledge of modern engineering practices (Git, code review, CI/CD basics, and operational readiness such as logging/monitoring).
• Experience working with security/governance stakeholders to apply controls in delivery (confidentiality, auditability and least privilege).
• Experience delivering through an agile product lifecycle with measurable outcomes (discovery, pilots, iteration, adoption/value tracking).
• Ability to apply pragmatic quality and evaluation approaches to AI-assisted features (testing/validation, guardrails, release gating and user feedback loops).
• Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills, including the ability to explain technical decisions and trade-offs to non-technical audiences and to support adoption.
• Experience in legal or other regulated/professional services environments where confidentiality and auditability are critical.
• Experience with Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Agents and/or Microsoft-aligned automation.
• Familiarity with one or more of: iManage, Aderant Expert, Intapp Intake, Microsoft Fabric or similar platforms.
• Experience building integrations with document/content platforms or line-of-business systems (e.g., DMS, intake, practice management, or data platforms).
• Exposure to Azure AI services (including Azure OpenAI/Azure AI) and/or delivering AI-assisted workflow features in production.
• Experience evaluating and piloting third-party AI tools (security posture, integration approach, operating model) and supporting build vs buy recommendations.

Birketts is a flexible business which has embraced a hybrid working model where our colleagues enjoy a mix of home and office working. This role attracts a split of 60% office days and 40% working from home days per week.

As a Birketts colleague, you will be eligible to receive a wide range of benefits:

• Long Service holiday award - 1 extra week every 10 years continuous service.
• Private Healthcare with BUPA (offered after probation is passed).
• Staff Profit Share and Individual Performance Bonus Scheme.
• Salary sacrifice (Pensions, Staff Profit Share).
• Life Assurance - 4 x salary / Permanent Health Insurance.
• Paid CSR Day.
• Enhanced Maternity/Paternity Leave.
• Subsidised gym membership.
• Electric car scheme.
• Dress for your Day Policy.

At Birketts, our culture is driven by ambition and a commitment to positively impact all the communities we serve. We are dedicated to the success, development, and wellbeing of our colleagues, helping them achieve their goals and seize the opportunities that come with our growth. Birketts is committed to being an Equal Opportunity Employer. Our policy is unequivocal: we do not tolerate discrimination based on age, disability, sex, race, religion or belief, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, or sexual orientation. We pride ourselves on being an inclusive organisation that actively promotes equality of opportunity for all, valuing the right mix of talent, skills, and potential. We welcome applications from a diverse range of candidates, and selection for roles is based solely on individual merit.