Head of Artificial Intelligence

Head of AI Engineering & Innovation
Location: Hybrid - 2 days in London
Salary: £110-120k basic with benefits

Are you passionate about building production-grade AI solutions while shaping the future of enterprise innovation?

We're looking for an experienced Head of AI Engineering & Innovation to lead and grow a high-performing AI function. This is a unique opportunity to define AI strategy, drive technical innovation, and remain hands-on in developing cutting-edge AI products and solutions used by both internal teams and enterprise clients.
You'll play a key role in influencing AI adoption, leading technical delivery, supporting business growth, and establishing best practices across AI engineering.

What you'll be doing
Define and execute the organisation's AI engineering and innovation strategy.
Lead and mentor a growing AI engineering team.
Design, build and deliver AI-powered applications, platforms and internal tools.
Stay hands-on with software development, architecture and technical problem-solving.
Work closely with clients and internal stakeholders to design scalable AI solutions.
Support pre-sales activity through technical proposals, workshops and solution presentations.
Champion emerging AI technologies and promote innovation across the business.
Develop reusable frameworks, accelerators and best practices that improve delivery and scalability.

What we're looking for
Proven experience leading AI engineering, AI product or innovation teams.
Strong software engineering background with experience delivering production-ready applications.
Expert Python development skills, ideally including FastAPI.
Strong experience with AWS, including services such as Bedrock, Lambda, ECS/EKS, API Gateway and S3.
Hands-on experience with LangChain, LangGraph, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector databases and multi-agent systems.
Experience building APIs, AI platforms and intelligent products.
Knowledge of AI evaluation, observability and monitoring tools such as LangSmith, Promptfoo, Arize or MLflow.
Understanding of AI testing, governance, safety and security best practices.
Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices.
Excellent communication skills with experience engaging technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Previous experience delivering solutions within regulated industries such as financial services, telecommunications or insurance is advantageous.

Nice to have
Azure and Azure AI Services.
AWS AgentCore.
MLOps and AI deployment tooling.
Knowledge graphs and graph databases.
Low-code, automation or integration platforms.
Front-end development experience.
Enterprise architecture or solution design experience.
Experience creating reusable developer platforms or innovation frameworks.

You'll be successful if you...
Enjoy balancing strategic leadership with hands-on engineering.
Can translate complex AI concepts into practical business solutions.
Thrive in fast-paced environments where innovation is encouraged.
Have a commercial mindset and enjoy working closely with clients.
Are passionate about building scalable, real-world AI solutions that deliver measurable value.

What's on offer
Opportunity to shape and lead an AI engineering capability.
Work on enterprise-scale AI products and innovation initiatives.
Influence technical strategy and emerging technologies.
Collaborative, forward-thinking engineering culture.

If you're excited by the opportunity to build impactful AI solutions while leading a growing engineering function, we'd love to hear from you.