At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the evolution of our data platform and drive AI integration across the company.
- Company: Join ECA International Group, a global leader in international mobility with a commitment to innovation.
- Benefits: Enjoy 25 days annual leave, health benefits, and up to £1,000 for personal development.
- Why this job: Shape the future of AI in a supportive environment while making a real impact.
- Qualifications: Experience in data platforms, AI enthusiasm, and team leadership skills required.
- Other info: Flexible work-life balance and opportunities for career growth in a diverse community.
The predicted salary is between 43200 - 72000 £ per year.
About Us
As a leading group of companies, the ECA International Group stands as a global frontrunner in simplifying international mobility. Our collective vision is to make a positive impact by delivering exceptional products and services to our prestigious list of large enterprise clients. Our global presence across the UK, EU, Hong Kong, Australia, and the US offers our team a world of opportunities, and our commitment to innovation ensures that you will be at the leading edge of your field. We love to invest in our people’s success and development pathways, creating a diverse and inclusive community where your unique talents shine. Your work here has a global impact, and we prioritise work-life balance, offering flexibility to enable you to perform your best. Join us to experience a rewarding career where your potential is celebrated, and your journey to excellence begins.
About the Job
This role is ideal for someone who wants to shape how a modern enterprise becomes truly AI-native. We already use AI in delivery and engineering, and we have strong guardrails and governance in place. Now, we’re looking for a leader who can help us scale: across data acquisition, ingestion, storage, and AI-powered consumption within a secure, multi-tenant environment. You’ll evolve our existing data platform (AWS, Snowflake, S3, Postgres, event-driven services) into a product-facing, AI-ready foundation, while partnering across disciplines and leading a team in a supportive, high-trust environment. If you're passionate about data, excited about AI, and motivated by meaningful impact, this role gives you the autonomy, influence, and visibility to shape how AI is adopted across the company.
Requirements
Key Responsibilities
- Data platform evolution: Take our current AWS/Snowflake/S3/Postgres setup and enable AI/RAG, product consumption, and multi-tenant access. Work with the Technical Architect to keep this aligned with our event-driven and security model.
- Data acquisition & ingestion: Design multi-source ingestion (APIs, scraping/crawling, file drops, crowdsourcing, agent-based pipelines). Make it observable, repeatable, and documented so research and analytics can plug in new sources without rework.
- AI as a consumption layer: Build LLM/RAG endpoints on top of our data and content as a service. Expose these services to Data Insights to enable users to ask, explore, and generate insights – not only download reports.
- Partnering with Analytics: Give the research teams clean, modelled, well-documented data. Turn one-off work into scheduled, production jobs.
- Guardrails, governance, and quality: Keep AI-generated code within SDLC, code review, and security bounds. Ensure data and AI services are audited and tenant aware.
- Team leadership: Lead a small technical team (data/AI/ingestion). Promote AI-native ways of working across product, data, and engineering. Manage and mentor your engineering team, fostering a collaborative, high-performance environment with excellent productivity. Demonstrate hands-on technical excellence while modelling accountability, critical thinking, and AI-first practices. Set clear objectives, provide regular feedback, conduct performance reviews.
- Delivery & Accountability: Take full accountability for the delivery of high-quality software products, owning both successes and challenges. Drive outcome focused delivery planning and execution, measuring success by business impact rather than effort or hours invested. Proactively identify and mitigate risks, making critical decisions to keep projects on track.
- Technical Direction & Architecture: Guide technical direction, establish best practices, and ensure architectural decisions support scalability, maintainability, and business goals. Be a hands-on contributor for architecting and building well-tested, maintainable applications. Optimise tech stacks and development workflows to maximise team productivity.
- Agile & Product Collaboration: Ensure Agile ceremonies (sprint planning, retrospectives, stand-ups) are followed and continuously refine Agile practices to optimise team performance. Collaborate with product owners and stakeholders to develop and maintain technical roadmaps that align with business strategy. Work with product owners to build and maintain a prioritised backlog that balances business value, technical debt, and innovation.
- Quality & Continuous Improvement: Enforce rigorous quality standards including test-driven development (TDD), code reviews, and automated testing. Ensure that security best practices are followed to the highest standards. Foster a culture of experimentation, learning, and continuous improvement. Use data and metrics to drive decisions and demonstrate improvement in team velocity, quality, and business outcomes.
The Ideal Candidate:
- Data-first mindset: You understand how data arrives in an organisation: via APIs, files, partner feeds, human/crowd sourced inputs or from the internet and that each of those has different latency, quality, and governance needs. You’re comfortable with: AWS (core services, IAM basics, networking good practice), Snowflake (or similar cloud data warehouse), Amazon S3 for landing/staging data, Postgres (including JSONB/dynamic fields), Event-driven patterns for efficient and effective data pipeline management.
- AI-positive, not AI-sceptic: This role is for someone who is genuinely enthusiastic about AI/LLMs/agents, is actively learning (even in their own time), and can translate AI concepts (RAG, agents, tools, function calling, model evaluation, private models) into working, secure services.
- Enterprise-aware: We have clients, tenants, and compliance, so you will design with security, PII and tenancy in mind, accept governance and SDLC gates as part of making AI safe, and still find a way to deliver fast.
- Builder + Manager: You’re happy to open the IDE and build the pipeline, but you can also run a small team, set standards, review code, and coach people into AI-native ways of working.
Benefits
What’s in it for you:
- Enhanced Stakeholder Pension Contribution
- 25 days annual leave
- Health, Life Insurance + EAP Wellbeing Support
- Eligible for Annual Bonus Scheme
- Long Service Awards
- ClassPass Membership
- Enhanced Family Leave
- Up to £1,000 per year for personal development & training
Tech Lead - Data & AI in London employer: The ECA International Group
Contact Detail:
The ECA International Group Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫
We think this is how you could land Tech Lead - Data & AI in London
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to people in your industry on LinkedIn or at events. A friendly chat can lead to opportunities that aren’t even advertised yet.
✨Tip Number 2
Show off your skills! Create a portfolio or GitHub repository showcasing your projects, especially those related to data and AI. This gives potential employers a taste of what you can do.
✨Tip Number 3
Prepare for interviews by practising common questions and scenarios specific to tech leads. We recommend doing mock interviews with friends or using online platforms to get comfortable.
✨Tip Number 4
Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen by the right people. Plus, it shows you’re genuinely interested in joining our team.
We think you need these skills to ace Tech Lead - Data & AI in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your CV: Make sure your CV is tailored to the Tech Lead - Data & AI role. Highlight your experience with AWS, Snowflake, and AI technologies. We want to see how your skills align with our needs!
Craft a Compelling Cover Letter: Your cover letter is your chance to shine! Share your passion for data and AI, and explain why you’re excited about this opportunity at ECA International Group. Let us know how you can make a positive impact.
Showcase Your Leadership Skills: Since this role involves leading a team, don’t forget to highlight your leadership experience. Talk about how you've managed teams in the past and fostered a collaborative environment. We love seeing that!
Apply Through Our Website: We encourage you to apply through our website for a smoother process. It helps us keep track of your application and ensures you don’t miss any important updates. Plus, it’s super easy!
How to prepare for a job interview at The ECA International Group
✨Know Your Tech Stack
Make sure you’re well-versed in the technologies mentioned in the job description, like AWS, Snowflake, and Postgres. Brush up on your knowledge of data ingestion methods and AI concepts, as you'll likely be asked to discuss how you can evolve their data platform.
✨Show Your Leadership Skills
Prepare examples of how you've successfully led a team in the past. Highlight your experience in mentoring and promoting collaborative environments. Be ready to discuss how you would manage and motivate a technical team while ensuring high performance.
✨Understand the Business Impact
Be prepared to talk about how your work can drive business outcomes. Think about specific examples where your technical decisions have positively impacted a project or organisation. This will show that you understand the importance of aligning tech with business goals.
✨Ask Insightful Questions
Prepare thoughtful questions that demonstrate your interest in the role and the company. Inquire about their current data challenges, how they envision AI evolving within the organisation, and what success looks like for this position. This shows you're not just interested in the job, but also in contributing to their vision.