VP of AI Platform Engineering in Manchester

Wenham Carter is proud to be supporting a global leader in industrial software on a confidential search for a senior engineering leader. Our client is a leading industrial-software business that delivers engineering, operations, and asset-performance solutions used by major operators worldwide. They combine domain expertise with a cloud-first platform strategy and work with strategic cloud providers to deliver scalable, secure AI services for complex industrial environments.

The role involves defining and delivering the organisation’s core AI Services (orchestration, APIs, SDKs, integration toolkits) and leading the technical strategy to embed AI-driven orchestration across their software portfolio. This is a hands-on senior leadership role: you will design the platform, own non-functional requirements (reliability, security, scalability, compliance), drive adoption internally and externally, and build a small, high-performing global team that moves fast with a start-up mentality.

What you’ll do:

• Define and deliver the Core AI Services platform (orchestration, APIs, SDKs, integration toolkits).
• Lead the design and delivery of AI-driven orchestration layers across the software portfolio.
• Own platform non-functional attributes: security, reliability, availability, compliance, and global scale.
• Lower barriers to integration - deliver an excellent developer experience (APIs, SDKs, documentation, sample apps).
• Collaborate closely with product, cloud, and partner teams to industrialise AI capabilities.
• Recruit, inspire, and lead a high-performing global engineering team with a pragmatic, product-led, start-up mindset.

Core skills & qualifications:

• 20+ years in software product development, with 10+ years in senior engineering leadership roles, driving cloud-native platforms or AI services.
• Proven track record building distributed, secure, and scalable cloud/AI services (experience with major cloud providers preferred).
• Solid background in AI/ML technologies, ideally with experience integrating LLM agents or advanced AI models into production orchestration layers.
• Strong knowledge of public API design, service lifecycle management, and developer experience best practices.
• Familiarity with emerging AI standards and agent protocols.
• Practical understanding of AI governance and regulation, with demonstrable experience implementing responsible-AI practices.
• Exceptional stakeholder engagement, cross-functional collaboration, and communication skills.

What success looks like (first 12–18 months):

• The core AI services are production-grade: scalable, reliable, available, and secure.
• Strong adoption of services by internal teams and external partners.
• Excellent developer experience for AI Services APIs (reduced time-to-value, curated SDKs, documentation, onboarding).
• Compliance with AI governance and regulatory requirements.
• A motivated, scalable Core AI team with clear growth, retention, and performance metrics.

Why this role matters:

This is a high-impact leadership position where you will define how AI is delivered to industrial customers at scale. You’ll work at the intersection of industrial expertise and state-of-the-art AI - shaping platform architecture, partner strategy, and engineering culture for long-term competitive advantage. The company’s industrial focus and cloud partnerships make this a rare opportunity to ship AI that materially improves uptime, safety, and efficiency for asset-intensive organisations.

Practicalities:

• Confidential senior leadership role; flexible global location with some travel to core offices expected (primarily UK and US).
• Competitive senior-leadership package (base + bonus + long-term incentives) commensurate with experience.

If you are a platform leader who has built secure, scalable cloud AI services for complex enterprise customers – and you want to lead a small, ambitious team delivering industrial AI at scale – I’d like to talk.