Senior Cloud Engineer - Azure AI in Manchester

We are seeking a Senior Azure AI Engineer to join a multidisciplinary AI delivery team responsible for developing and deploying AI-powered solutions on Microsoft Azure. This role is suited to experienced engineers from a range of backgrounds, including AI Engineering, Data & Context Engineering, Application Engineering, Full Stack Development, and Cloud Engineering. We are looking for individuals with deep expertise in one or more of these areas and a willingness to collaborate across the wider Azure AI ecosystem.

Working within an agile AI squad, you will contribute to the design, development and delivery of AI-enabled services, intelligent assistants, retrieval systems and cloud-native applications.

We Are Interested In Candidates With Experience In One Or More Of The Following Areas:

• AI Engineering
• Azure AI Foundry
• Azure OpenAI
• Prompt Flow
• Prompt Engineering
• Agentic AI solutions
• AI orchestration and workflow automation
• AI evaluation and optimisation
• Responsible AI and guardrails
• Data & Context Engineering
• Azure AI Search
• Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Vector search and semantic retrieval
• Document ingestion and processing pipelines
• Context engineering
• Metadata management
• Evaluation datasets and testing frameworks
• Application Engineering
• Full stack application development
• React and TypeScript
• API integration
• Cloud-native development
• Authentication and authorisation
• CI/CD pipelines
• Secure software engineering
• Cloud & Integration Engineering
• Azure platform services
• Logic Apps
• Event-driven architectures
• Enterprise integration patterns
• Microservices
• Platform automation and DevOps

Key Responsibilities:

• Designing and developing AI-powered business solutions.
• Building AI assistants, copilots and intelligent workflows.
• Developing retrieval and knowledge management capabilities.
• Creating secure and scalable cloud-native applications.
• Integrating AI services with enterprise systems and data sources.
• Implementing security, governance and operational controls.
• Supporting deployment, testing and optimisation of AI solutions.
• Collaborating with analysts, architects and delivery teams to deliver business outcomes.

Essential Skills & Experience:

• Strong experience in at least one of the following: Azure AI and Generative AI development, Data engineering and retrieval architectures, Full stack application development, Cloud-native software engineering, Enterprise integration and platform engineering.
• Strong problem-solving and technical design skills.
• Experience working within Agile delivery environments.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills.
• A collaborative approach to multidisciplinary delivery.

This role requires active UK Security Check (SC) clearance. Due to programme requirements, only candidates holding current and transferable SC clearance at the point of application can be considered. Applicants must have the right to work in the UK and be willing to maintain clearance for the duration of the engagement.

Desirable Experience:

• Azure certifications.
• Experience with Large Language Models (LLMs).
• Knowledge of agentic AI frameworks.
• Experience working within secure or regulated environments.
• Exposure to enterprise-scale AI deployments.

Benefits:

• Training – All team members are offered a number of options in terms of personal development, whether it is technical led, business acumen or methodologies.
• Private medical cover for you and your spouse/partner, offered via Vitality.
• Discretionary bonus based on a blend of personal and company performance.
• Holiday – You will receive 25 Days holiday, plus 1 day for Birthday and 1 day for your work anniversary in addition to UK bank holidays.
• Electric Vehicle leasing with salary sacrifice.
• Contributed Pension Scheme.
• Death in service cover.

Equal Opportunities:

We are an equal opportunities employer and do not discriminate on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability or age.