Senior AI Automation Engineer in Manchester

At On the Beach, we’re redefining how people discover, plan and book their beach holidays. Our platform serves millions of customers every year, and we’re investing in how AI and automation can transform the way our business operates. We’re looking for a Senior AI Automation Engineer to help design, build and mature the next generation of intelligent, automated systems across the business. From AI powered workflows and agent driven solutions to services, integrations and automation platforms, you’ll help us create scalable solutions that reduce manual effort, improve decision making and unlock capacity across the organisation.

About the Role

This is not a traditional RPA role. We don’t just want to automate, we want to simplify our processes first. You’ll work at the intersection of automation, AI and software engineering, helping shape how we identify, design and deliver high impact automation opportunities across On the Beach. You’ll be trusted to take ownership of complex problems from discovery through to production, working closely with stakeholders to understand the real business need and creating solutions that are practical, secure, measurable and built to last. You’ll work alongside our existing team of AI and Automation engineers, helping us build both early prototypes, and robust platform capabilities. Over time, you’ll become a key point of technical ownership for our AI automation approach, helping establish standards, reusable patterns and ways of working for the wider business.

Why join this team?

You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing capability with genuine influence over its technical direction, engineering standards and long term impact. You’ll work on a mix of modern AI and automation initiatives, alongside existing processes that need improving or modernising. There will be space to experiment, but also a clear focus on delivering solutions that make a measurable difference to colleagues and customers. You’ll be part of a collaborative team that values curiosity, ownership, thoughtful engineering and knowledge sharing.

What you’ll be doing day to day

• Leading the design and delivery of complex automation and AI solutions across the business, using AI augmented engineering tools such as Claude Code.
• Taking ownership of technical discovery, solution design and implementation, turning ambiguous business problems into scalable and maintainable automation products.
• Working closely with our engineers, product teams and business stakeholders to develop, productionise and improve AI enabled workflows and agent based solutions.
• Designing and integrating APIs, services, and other data sources to create reliable end to end automation solutions.
• Establishing strong engineering practices around testing, security, observability, documentation, error handling and incident response.
• Assessing where AI is the right solution and where simpler automation, process improvement or system integration would create better value.
• Building reusable components, standards and patterns that make future automation work faster, safer and easier to maintain.
• Monitoring the performance, reliability, cost and business impact of solutions in production, using data and feedback to prioritise improvements.
• Supporting and mentoring engineers or colleagues who are developing their automation and AI engineering capability.

You’ll be a great addition to our team if you have the following skills, knowledge and experience

• Demonstrable experience of using AI Augmented software engineering tools such Claude Code, Codex or similar.
• Experience with frameworks such as ADK, LangChain is beneficial too.
• Strong scripting experience, ideally Python, with a track record of building and maintaining production grade services, integrations or automation solutions.
• Experience designing complex automation systems beyond scripting, including workflows that integrate multiple services, APIs, data sources and business processes.
• You’re used to interpreting data and building data‑led tools to help non‑technical stakeholders visualise and understand business problems.
• Experience taking technical ownership of projects, from problem discovery and solution design through to deployment, monitoring and iteration.
• Experience applying sound software engineering practices, including version control, code review, testing, CI/CD, documentation and observability.
• The ability to balance short term delivery with long term maintainability, making pragmatic decisions in a fast moving environment.
• Experience supporting, mentoring or coaching other engineers, or a clear interest in helping others develop.

Nice to have:

• Experience building or working with agent‑based systems or orchestration frameworks.
• Exposure to infrastructure as code and CI/CD practices.

What to expect from our interview process

We’ll run a multiple stage interview process, one stage of which will be an in‑person interview at our fabulous Aeroworks office in Manchester city centre. We want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to perform at their best. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the interview process please let the Talent Acquisition team know and they will be happy to assist.

Ways of working

Our full time hours are 37.5 per week, but we don't have rigid working hours so you can find the working pattern that's right for you. We have core working hours between 10am - 4pm, so we can collaborate and enjoy the social side of work. We also have hybrid working so we all work from home and from our Aeroworks office in Manchester City Centre. As a team we are in the office 2 days per week (usually Tuesday & Wednesday).

Our benefits

We might be biased but we think our colleagues are pretty great. They're the people that have made On the Beach what it is today and continue to make it vibrant and successful tomorrow. That's why we offer a competitive benefits package, known as our Beach Perks, to all On the Beach colleagues. These include:

• 25 days holiday plus your birthday off
• Generous discount on holidays, plus you will receive 2 extra days annual leave on top of your holiday allowance to use whilst you're away on your On the Beach package holiday
• Access to Learnerbly learning platform, plus workshops, courses and professional qualifications
• Enhanced maternity, paternity, shared parental leave and adoption pay, plus other family friendly support
• Employee Assistance Programme and free access to counselling
• Simplyhealth Optimise Health Plan
• Company Sick Pay scheme
• Regular wellbeing events
• Gym discount
• Share Incentive Plan (SIP)
• Death in Service cover
• Onsite subsidised coffee shop
• The Sandbox (our very own bar)
• Food and drink discounts across a number of venues in Manchester City Centre
• Regular social events
• Cycle to Work scheme