At a Glance
- Tasks: Build AI solutions directly with customers, tackling real operational problems at speed.
- Company: Innovative UK tech company focused on AI orchestration in complex organisations.
- Benefits: Flexible working, share options, and minimal bureaucracy for rapid impact.
- Other info: Join a fast-moving team with opportunities to shape engineering practices.
- Why this job: Make a real difference by solving critical problems with cutting-edge AI technology.
- Qualifications: 8+ years in software or AI, deep Python skills, and customer-facing experience.
The predicted salary is between 81000 - 99000 £ per year.
Principal-level individual contributor role embedded directly with customers.
Building AI capability against live operational problems, at pace.
Python, large language models, agentic workflows, data integration.
Set the technical standard for how AI gets deployed across every customer.
Share options and an unusually short distance between idea and impact.
About the Company: My client is a UK technology company building an AI operating and orchestration layer that puts intelligent systems to work inside large, complex organisations where accuracy and accountability really matter. The platform is already live and in daily operational use with major customers. The engineering group is small, senior and unusually fast moving, with AI tooling built into how the team genuinely works rather than bolted on afterwards.
The Role: This is a forward deployed role in the truest sense. You go to where the problem is, work alongside the people who have it, and build against it in days rather than quarters. At principal level you are also the technical authority for how that work gets done, setting the patterns, calling the hard architectural questions, and lifting the engineers around you. It suits a very experienced engineer who wants real influence without moving into people management, and who is motivated by problems that matter rather than problems that scale neatly.
Key Responsibilities:
- Embed with customer teams to understand operational problems first hand.
- Build working AI solutions rapidly against real data and real constraints.
- Set the technical approach and architectural patterns used across deployments.
- Own the hardest problems, the ones nobody else has managed to crack.
- Design and tune retrieval, prompting and agent behaviour for demanding use cases.
- Establish the standard for how output quality is validated before it is relied upon.
- Convert successful deployments into repeatable product capability.
- Mentor senior engineers and act as the technical voice with senior customer stakeholders.
What You'll Need:
Essential:
- 8+ years building software or AI systems in production.
- Deep Python expertise and substantial hands-on large language model experience.
- Track record of shipping quickly in ambiguous, under-specified situations.
- Experience setting technical direction that other engineers then follow.
- Confident working directly with customers, including in operational settings.
- Eligible for UK security clearance.
Desirable / Nice to Have:
- Previous forward deployed, field engineering or embedded consulting experience.
- Background delivering into a heavily regulated or operationally critical domain.
- Open source contribution, patents or published technical work.
Why Apply?
- The shortest possible distance between a real problem and a working solution.
- Genuine principal-level scope, not a senior role with a better title.
- Share options as part of the package.
- Almost no bureaucracy between you and shipping.
- Flexible working pattern.
- Direct line to founders and senior leadership.
- Shape how an entire engineering function operates while it is still being built.
Benefits: Work From Home.
Principal AI Engineer (Forward Deployed) in Belfast employer: Ocho
Join a dynamic and innovative digital consultancy that champions a remote-first work culture, offering exceptional benefits such as a competitive salary, generous annual leave, and a commitment to professional development. With a focus on quality and collaboration, you'll thrive in an environment that values your expertise and provides the autonomy to shape QA processes while working on complex, multi-component systems alongside a talented team in Northern Ireland.
