Lead AI Platform Engineer

The Lead AI Platform Engineer role is a foundational engineering enablement role responsible for defining the standards, platform patterns and operating approach required to integrate AI agents within the Inflo platform in a safe, secure and consistent way. This role will establish the guardrails, reference approaches and foundational tooling that enable engineering teams to build, deploy and operate agent capabilities safely. A key part of the role is creating practical guidance for how agents are evaluated, tested, versioned, deployed and monitored in production, with strong observability and operational control.

Responsibilities

• Defining the standards, engineering patterns and target operating model for AI agents within the Inflo platform, including how agent capabilities should be introduced, governed and supported safely.
• Designing the foundational tooling, pipelines and reference approaches that support the agent lifecycle, including evaluation, testing, versioning, deployment and rollback.
• Working closely with platform and software engineers to implement shared capabilities, delivery practices and operational patterns that feature teams can adopt consistently.
• Establishing safe-by-design controls for agent behaviour, including guardrails, governance, monitoring, auditability and human oversight where appropriate.
• Defining observability standards for agents, including telemetry, quality signals, operational health, incident investigation and continuous improvement loops.
• Enabling engineering teams to deploy and operate agents in a safe, consistent and supportable way through reusable patterns, reference implementations, documentation and technical coaching.
• Researching emerging agentic AI technologies, frameworks and practices, and assessing their suitability for use within Inflo’s SaaS platform.

Required/desired skills & qualifications

• Strong understanding of AI concepts relevant to agentic systems, including large language models, retrieval patterns, evaluation approaches, prompt and instruction design, and orchestration concepts.
• Proven experience integrating AI agents or agent-like capabilities into customer-facing SaaS products.
• Experience defining standards and foundational tooling for the safe lifecycle management of AI systems, including evaluation, testing, versioning, deployment, monitoring and rollback.
• Experience establishing observability for AI systems, including telemetry, quality measurement, operational monitoring, debugging and incident response.
• Experience working with software and platform engineers to implement practical engineering standards, shared capabilities and operational practices.
• Experience creating reusable guidance, reference implementations or enablement approaches that help engineering teams adopt new capabilities consistently.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure, including AI Foundry, and familiarity with cloud-based AI deployment patterns.
• Experience with Azure DevOps pipelines and Infrastructure-as-Code, ideally using Bicep.
• Familiarity with AI ethics, bias mitigation, risk management, data privacy (e.g., GDPR), and emerging regulations such as the EU AI Act.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to collaborate credibly across engineering teams and document technical standards, patterns and guidance clearly.

Core values in action

• Science – Bringing an evidence-led mindset to the role by using structured evaluation, testing, telemetry and measurable outcomes to shape how agents are designed, introduced and improved across the platform.
• Ownership – Taking responsibility for establishing the standards, guardrails and foundational tooling that enable safe adoption of AI agents, while working proactively with Platform engineers and product teams to ensure those approaches are implemented effectively.
• Openness – Collaborating transparently with technical and non-technical stakeholders, explaining trade-offs clearly, sharing guidance and patterns openly, and creating confidence in how agent capabilities are governed and operated.
• Agility – Responding effectively to rapid change in AI technologies, platform priorities and regulatory expectations by iterating on standards, tooling and guidance in a practical way that helps engineering teams move quickly without compromising safety or quality.

Success within the first 12 months

Within the first 12 months, success in this role would look like having established a clear and practical engineering foundation for how AI agents are governed, built, deployed and supported across the platform. The successful candidate will have defined standards, reusable patterns and foundational tooling that enable platform engineers and feature teams to safely integrate agent capabilities into SaaS workflows with confidence. They will have improved the platform’s readiness to operate agentic capabilities at scale through stronger observability, better operational controls and a consistent enablement model that supports responsible adoption over time. They will also have increased the effectiveness of engineering teams by providing practical reference implementations, technical guidance and shared delivery patterns that reduce duplication and improve consistency.

THE COMPANY

Inflo is a fast-paced, agile, and rapidly scaling technology company. Founded in 2015, we have established Inflo as an innovative and impactful tech business, securing a global customer base of high-profile accounting firms and networks. We are passionate about the accounting profession we serve and focus on driving long-term success, both in our business and those we work with. This has resulted in Inflo’s SaaS platform winning multiple awards, including International Accounting Bulletin’s Accountancy Software of the Year twice, the Queens Award for Innovation and the Boomer Technology & Innovation Visionary award.

THE CULTURE

Inflo was established by former auditors who were motivated to transform their field and liberate auditors from monotonous, repetitive tasks. Our team, a collective of enthusiastic, diverse individuals, operates out of three global locations: the US, the UK, and Australia. Each day, our team significantly contributes to both our business and the evolution of the audit industry. We maintain an optimal balance, embracing the agility and collaborative spirit of a start-up, unencumbered by rigid corporate structures, yet with the stability, resources, and professionalism of an established, international company.

Our core values are the essence of our operations:

• Science – We experiment and make decisions based on data over intuition.
• Ownership – We empower our people and embrace accountability.
• Openness – We share, challenge and embrace feedback, learning from our successes and failures.
• Agility – We have a bias for action and iteratively solve problems.

The offer

As an Inflo employee, you’ll enjoy the following benefits: 7% Employer pension contributions providing you are a member of the scheme. 25 days holiday + UK bank holidays, with an additional 0.5 days for every year of service. 4x Salary life assurance. Private medical insurance with Bupa. Medical cash back scheme (for optical, dental etc). Flexible working environment – work whenever and wherever that suits you. At Inflo we measure results, not the amount of time you spend behind your laptop. Employee Referral scheme bonus of £1,000. Financial support to enhance your home working environment. Opportunity to work from home as a fully remote role within the UK. Opportunity to meet Quarterly in Newcastle with an evening social. Invitation to our Annual Global Gathering. Continued professional development.