Lead AI Engineer (LLMs & GenAI)

Technical Lead AI Engineering | Guildford (Hybrid) | Generative AI, LLMs & Machine Learning | Up to £150K + BenefitsWe're partnering with an established technology-led business investing heavily in AI, data and automation as it builds the next generation of intelligent products and services.They're looking for a Technical Lead AI Engineering professional to lead a team of AI Engineers while remaining deeply hands-on in the design, development and deployment of production-grade AI solutions. This is not a people management role where you move away from technology.The expectation is that you'll spend the majority of your time building and delivering AI systems whilst setting technical direction and mentoring the team.You'll work across modern Generative AI applications, LLMs, RAG architectures, traditional machine learning, MLOps and data engineering, helping shape the company's AI strategy and engineering standards while solving real business problems at scale.ResponsibilitiesLead the design, development and deployment of production-grade AI and machine learning solutions across the business.Build and scale LLM-powered applications using RAG, vector search, retrievers, prompt orchestration and agentic workflows.Design and optimise data pipelines using Python, PySpark, SQL and Databricks.Define engineering standards for AI experimentation, model evaluation, deployment and monitoring.Drive best practices around MLOps, version control, reproducibility, CI/CD and production AI systems.Lead a team of AI Engineers through mentoring, technical guidance, code reviews and career development.Work closely with business stakeholders to translate complex problems into practical AI solutions.Influence platform, tooling and architectural decisions across AI, data and machine learning initiatives.Establish monitoring, guardrails and governance frameworks to ensure AI systems remain reliable and secure in production.Skills & ExperienceProven experience as a Senior AI Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, AI Architect or Technical Lead.Strong Python development skills with experience building production AI and machine learning systems.Deep experience with Databricks in a commercial environment.Strong understanding of SQL, data engineering, ETL/ELT pipelines and data architecture.Hands-on experience building LLM applications, RAG frameworks, vector databases, embeddings and AI orchestration workflows.Experience evaluating, benchmarking and deploying AI and ML models into production environments.Familiarity with cloud platforms, ideally Azure and Azure AI services.Experience leading engineers through mentoring, technical leadership or line management responsibilities.Strong communication skills with the ability to engage both technical and non-technical stakeholders.Experience with Azure AI Foundry.Experience with LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex or similar AI orchestration frameworks.MLflow and MLOps expertise.Agentic AI application development.Model Context Protocol (MCP).Experience working within regulated environments such as legal, financial services or insurance.Why Join?Genuine hands-on technical leadership position.Opportunity to shape AI strategy and engineering standards.Modern AI stack including Databricks, Azure and Generative AI tooling.Lead a high-impact team delivering real-world AI solutions.Significant influence over architecture, tooling and platform decisions.Competitive salary package up to £150K plus additional benefits.If you're an experienced AI Engineer looking to combine hands-on innovation with technical leadership, we'd love to hear from you.Apply with your CV today.