AI Principal in Manchester

We are looking for an AI Principal who will use their expert technical knowledge to influence the direction of AI-driven projects, whilst coaching clients and teams alike on how to adopt best-in-class AI practices to build and deliver remarkable products. You will step into a role where you won't just build systems; you will act as a persuasive realist for our clients. You will champion software quality, Human‑Centred AI, and the necessary guardrails required for enterprise adoption. Whether you are architecting large‑scale, production‑ready AI implementations, evangelising best practices to executives, or mentoring engineers, you will be the driving force behind turning AI hype into tangible business value.

Core Technical Leadership

• Deep Software Engineering Experience: Expert knowledge across the whole stack, with a proven ability to design and build scalable, resilient, and maintainable systems. A good understanding of data strategies would also be valuable.
• Architectural Vision: Comfortable shaping how we deliver engagements as the technical expert, bringing the best thinking to clients in terms of standards, templates, ways of working, and tools.
• Hands‑on Excellence: Comfortable being hands‑on with development teams, understanding what great code looks like, and applying a DevOps mindset to ensure operational readiness.
• Cloud & Infrastructure: Strong grounding in cloud‑native patterns (AWS preferred), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), and CI/CD pipelines.
• Articulation: Act as a persuasive, but realist, evangelist for AI best practices, educating stakeholders at any level on the value impact.

Systemic AI Design

• Agentic Architectures: Design and oversee the delivery of autonomous, agent‑based systems that utilise tools, APIs, and multi‑step reasoning to solve complex business workflows.
• Compound AI Systems: Shift beyond single-model interactions to architect complex systems that integrate multiple LLMs, retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG), and deterministic logic guardrails.
• Model Agnostic Strategy: Build "pluggable" technical architectures that allow for model interoperability, enabling the business to switch between providers without significant re‑engineering.
• LLMOps at Scale: Oversee the end‑to‑end lifecycle of AI products, from prompt versioning and vector database indexing to automated CI/CD pipelines.
• Performance Optimization: Balance technical sophistication with commercial reality by implementing Small Language Models (SLMs) or edge‑runtime solutions to optimise for latency and cost.

AI Strategy & Governance

• Evaluation & Reliability: Define and implement robust evaluation frameworks to measure model performance and accuracy (e.g., using "Golden Datasets" and automated benchmarking).
• Safety & Ethics: Lead the technical strategy for bias mitigation, toxicity filtering, and hallucination management, ensuring all AI solutions are ethical and transparent.
• Cost & Performance Engineering: Apply a pragmatic, commercial lens to technical design. Balance sophistication with reality by implementing Small Language Models (SLMs) or edge‑runtime solutions to optimise for latency, cost, and efficiency.
• Technical Advisory: Comfortable guiding clients through the AI landscape, advising on realistic opportunities and navigating the practical value of emerging patterns.
• Mentorship: Proven experience mentoring the Developer community, sharing and receiving regular feedback to help engineers develop their AI and full‑stack specialisms.

Consulting & Client Delivery

• Act as a trusted technical partner to C‑suite stakeholders, applying structured problem solving to guide AI decisions and resolve complex, ambiguous business challenges.
• Lead agile teams to deliver high‑impact AI solutions, building repeatable tools and methodologies that ensure sustainable delivery and internal scalability across the business.
• Identify the "value exchange" in client interactions to move beyond one off projects, proactively building strategic relationships that turn accounts into long term "raving fans".
• Drive the external perception of the business as a premier AI authority by producing high‑level content and speaking at events to promote deep technical expertise.

Benefits

• Opportunities to work on projects with big clients and produce meaningful work that makes a genuine difference to people’s lives.
• A "Blended Working" model, meaning you will be able to work from your home, in your clubhouse, or at a client site.
• The benefits of having a small company feel through being part of an autonomous Club, while having the scale of a larger organisation.
• A dedicated career scrum team, designed to help you reach your career goals and develop the skills you need to be your best self.
• A safe environment for you to be yourself and challenge yourself.
• 25 days holiday allowance + bank holidays (with flexible bank holidays).
• Share scheme.
• A £1000 flexifund for gym membership, Cycle to Work, Health, dental and optical cash plans.
• Private medical insurance.
• 6% employer pension contribution.

Equal Opportunities Statement

We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from all qualified candidates. We actively encourage applications from women, ethnic minorities, and individuals with disabilities. We consider all flexible working arrangements, subject to the requirements of the role. Where reasonable adjustments are needed, we will strive to make changes to accommodate them.