Lead AI Engineer

Kainos Group plc; City of London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology firm in the UK is seeking a Lead AI Engineer to architect and deliver advanced AI solutions. The ideal candidate has strong Python skills, experience with cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, and a background in deploying AI/ML solutions. This position involves hands-on leadership and collaboration with clients to create trustworthy AI systems while fostering a culture of innovation and continuous learning.

Benefits

Ranked in Sunday Times Top 100 Best Companies

Cutting-edge technologies

Exciting work environment

Qualifications

• Experience in deploying modern AI/ML solutions.
• Strong Python skills and knowledge of software engineering best practices.
• Experience developing scalable solutions on cloud platforms.
• Strong interpersonal skills and experience leading projects.
• Experience in coaching and developing team members.

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and deliver advanced AI solutions.
• Drive adoption of modern AI frameworks and AIOps best practices.
• Collaborate with customers to translate business challenges into AI solutions.
• Mentor team members and foster a culture of innovation.

Skills

Python

AI/ML deployment

Deep learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow)

Cloud platforms (Azure & AWS)

Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)

Interpersonal skills

Tools

scikit-learn

XGBoost

vector databases

semantic search

knowledge graphs

Job description

**J****OB****P****ROFILE DESCRIPTION** **M****AIN PURPOSE OF THE ROLE****&****RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE BUSINESS****:** As a Lead AI Engineer at Kainos, you will architect, design, and deliver advanced AI solutions leveraging state-of-the-art machine learning, generative and agentic AI technologies. You will drive the adoption of modern AI frameworks, AIOps best practices and scalable cloud-native architectures. Your role will involve hands-on technical leadership, collaborating with customers to translate business challenges into trustworthy AI solutions and ensuring responsible AI practices throughout. As a technical mentor, you will foster a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and engineering excellence.**M****INIMUM****(****ESSENTIAL****)****REQUIREMENTS**: Demonstrable experience of deploying modern AI/ML solutions into production, including prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), model evaluation, and monitoring using metrics (e.g. precision, recall, NDCG and drift detection).Strong Python skills with a grounding in software engineering best practices (CI/CD, testing, code reviews etc).Experience developing solutions at scale on cloud platforms (Azure & AWS), containerisation and orchestration tools such as Kubernetes and Docker.Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to lead client projects and establish requirements in non-technical language.We are passionate about developing people, you will bring experience in managing, coaching, and developing junior members of a team and wider community.Demonstrable experience with modern deep learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow), fine-tuning or distillation of LLMs (e.g, GPT, Llama, Claude, Gemini), machine learning libraries (e.g. scikit-learn, XGBoost).Experience with data storage for AI, vector databases, semantic search, and knowledge graphs.Familiarity with AI security, privacy, and compliance standards e.g. ISO42001.At Kainos we use technology to solve real problems for our customers, overcome big challenges for businesses, and make people’s lives easier. We build strong relationships with our customers and go beyond to change the way they work today and the impact they have tomorrow.Our two specialist practices, Digital Services and Workday, work globally for clients across healthcare, commercial and the public sector to make the world a little bit better, day by day.Our people love the exciting work, the cutting-edge technologies and the benefits we offer. That’s why we’ve been ranked in the Sunday Times Top 100 Best Companies on numerous occasions.For more information, see .