Lead Engineer (AI Platform) in Belfast

Imagine catching criminals before they strike—that’s exactly what Napier’s AI-powered platform does! By analysing transactions and customers in real time, Napier AI’s technology empowers financial institutions to spot suspicious activity, like money laundering, and stops it in its tracks. Napier AI’s technology works like a digital detective, combining AI with smart analytics to outthink criminals and protect people’s money from becoming criminal proceeds. It’s not just about stopping crime—it’s about making the financial world safer and more trustworthy for everyone. Collaboration, innovation and wonderful people are just some of the reasons to bring your career to Napier. Our culture is shaped by our core values that promote equality, creativity, and opportunity in everything we do.

After successfully securing PI investment to fuel our ongoing growth and to further invest in our AI products, we are currently building out our Tech Hub in Belfast - this is a super exciting time to join Napier in Belfast as we expand.

Overview of the role:

The Lead Engineer will play a key role in building and shaping a new AI-focused engineering capability within Napier, based in Belfast. This is a hands‑on leadership role within a smaller, high-impact team, focused on extending Napier’s AI functionality and applying AI and machine learning models to detect and prevent financial crime. You will be responsible for both contributing directly to the development of AI-driven systems and leading technical direction within the team. This role offers an opportunity to build something from the ground up in a relatively greenfield environment, helping define the technical approach, tooling, and engineering practices as the team grows. Depending on experience, the role can flex between a strong Technical Lead or a Team Lead, combining hands‑on engineering with leadership responsibility.

Your day to day:

• Designing and implementing AI-driven features and services within Napier’s platform
• Contributing hands‑on to development, including coding, debugging, and testing
• Leading or mentoring a small team of engineers, supporting their growth and output
• Working closely with Product, Architecture, and Data teams to translate AI use cases into production systems
• Helping define and evolve engineering standards, tooling, and development practices within the AI team
• Supporting integration of AI/ML models into scalable, production‑grade systems
• Diagnosing and resolving functional and performance/scalability issues
• Participating in technology selection and architectural decisions
• Supporting recruitment and onboarding of new team members as required
• Providing input on resourcing decisions and team growth

Do you have what it takes?

Knowledge/experience:

• At least 5–7 years of commercial experience in a senior or lead engineering role
• Strong experience building and delivering production‑grade systems in a product or SaaS environment
• Experience working in smaller companies or teams, with a pragmatic and adaptable approach
• Experience leading engineers or acting in a technical leadership capacity
• Experience working in Agile delivery environments with a continuous improvement mindset
• Exposure to AI/ML systems, data‑driven platforms, or analytics products
• Understanding of how to integrate models or data‑driven features into production systems
• Knowledge of DevOps and modern software engineering practices

Skills:

These skills are essential to be successful in this role:

• Strong hands‑on programming experience in Go or Python (experience in both is beneficial)
• Experience building distributed, microservice‑based systems
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Understanding of containerisation and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Experience with data pipelines, streaming technologies, or event‑driven systems (e.g. Kafka beneficial)
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills with the ability to adapt quickly to changing requirements
• Ability to balance hands‑on development with technical leadership responsibilities
• Collaborative team player with strong communication and stakeholder management skills
• Comfortable working in evolving environments and helping shape direction and structure

We’d be thrilled if you also have experience with, and are keen to grow your skills in, some of these other areas:

• Machine learning frameworks or AI model development
• Financial crime, fraud, or risk‑related domains
• Data processing and analytics platforms
• Performance engineering and scalability optimisation
• Observability tools such as Grafana and Prometheus
• Exposure to modern front‑end technologies (React, Angular)
• Experience working with distributed or remote teams

Why Napier?

• Comprehensive private healthcare through AXA covering optical, audio & dental.
• 25 days of annual leave + bank holidays, your birthday and a wellness day
• Dedicated pension plan through Aviva
• Life Insurance 4x your annual salary
• Enhanced Maternity & Paternity leave
• Income protections policy
• Work from anywhere for up to 1 month
• Access to our employee wellbeing programme.
• Gym membership discounts.
• Flexibility in work schedules and locations, ensuring a work‑life balance.

This role can be fulfilled either with a hybrid approach or fully in‑office – depending on your preference. An open and flexible culture that allows you to work in the best way for you.

Please note applicants must have the right to work in the United Kingdom. We are unable to offer sponsorship or take over sponsorship of employment visas at this time.