AI Engineer

WORKING PATTERN Hybrid, 40% (or two days) in our Manchester office location.

What you'll be doing:

• Developing the upcoming era of autonomous AI for colleagues and customers, ensuring safety, security, and scalability.
• Setting technical direction and leading multiple teams to design, build and run AI Agents on Google Cloud, blending open-source tools with GCP native services.
• Staying hands-on when needed and helping grow engineering capability while delivering outcomes at pace in a regulated environment.
• Working closely with Engineering, Product and Architecture teams to define the strategy and technical direction for agentic AI services, establishing standards, patterns and quality expectations.
• Leading and developing multiple engineering teams, fostering a high-performing, inclusive culture while delivering resilient and scalable solutions.
• Designing, building and operating AI Agents on Google Cloud using services such as Vertex AI, Cloud Run, GKE, BigQuery and IAM, integrating securely with enterprise systems and following modern engineering practices including CI/CD, automated testing, SRE and observability.
• Having responsibility for the full solution lifecycle, ensuring platforms are secure, compliant, resilient and cost-effective through robust guardrails, model evaluation, FinOps and effective security controls.
• Driving engineering excellence by developing reusable components and standards, leading vendor engagements, simplifying infrastructure and influencing senior stakeholders across the platform.

What we're looking for:

• Proficiency in Python and TypeScript, with experience delivering production services (APIs, event-driven systems, microservices), ideally on GCP.
• Proven technical leadership of large, multi-team deliveries - setting strategy, making sound architectural decisions and enabling teams to deliver at pace.
• Hands-on experience with agentic AI: building LLM-powered applications/agents, tool use, orchestration, retrieval (RAG), prompt and safety engineering, evaluation and telemetry.
• Proficient knowledge of cloud-native engineering: containers (GKE/Cloud Run), Terraform/IaC, continuous integration/continuous deployment, automated quality assurance, observability, optimizing performance, and managing incidents.
• Solid knowledge of security, privacy and compliance in regulated environments; confident working with Risk, Security and Legal teams.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to simplify complex concepts into clear, outcome-focused narratives.

And any experience of these would be great:

• Experience with Vertex AI Agent Builder/Agentspace, LangGraph, multi-agent patterns or agent-to-agent protocols.
• Knowledge of data governance and model risk practices in financial services.
• Exposure to Azure/AWS or cross-cloud patterns.
• Experience building communities of practice and engineering guilds.

We know that great talent comes from many backgrounds. Whilst this job advert may reference specific years of experience, we recognise that skills are developed in many ways. So, if you have relevant, transferable experience, we encourage you to apply.

This is a place for you:

• Our ambition is to be the leading UK business for diversity, equity and inclusion, supporting our customers, colleagues and communities.
• We're committed to creating an environment in which everyone can thrive, learn and develop.
• We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and establish a dedicated Working with Cancer initiative.
• We offer reasonable workplace adjustments for colleagues with disabilities, including flexibility in office attendance, location and working patterns.
• As a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee interviews for a fair and proportionate number of applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role and have a disability, long-term health condition or neurodivergent condition through the Disability Confident Scheme.
• We provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process to reduce or remove barriers. Just let us know what you need.

We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%
• An annual performance related bonus
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
• 30 days' holiday, with bank holidays on top
• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies