Operational AI Engineering & Model Lifecycle Lead

Singtel; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 210,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working arrangements

Employee discounts

On-site amenities

Parental leave & wellbeing programs

Job summary

Optus is seeking an AD, AI Engineering Model Lifecycle & Governance leader to drive the engineering, operationalisation and ongoing lifecycle management of AI capabilities across Network Operations.

You will align priorities to reliability, resilience and customer outcomes, industrialise production-ready AI, and implement governance, traceability and human oversight in production environments.

Qualifications

• Extensive leadership experience across telecommunications, AI/ML engineering, Network Operations, data engineering or large-scale technology environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading enterprise-scale AI engineering, MLOps/ModelOps or production AI capabilities across complex, distributed environments.
• Strong knowledge of AI/ML engineering, feature engineering, model deployment, registries, monitoring, drift management, retraining and lifecycle governance.
• Strong understanding of operational data, service topology, observability, Operational Intelligence and automation, and how they combine to enable AI-driven operations.
• Experience implementing responsible AI, model assurance, explainability, security and human-oversight controls in production environments.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the Operational AI Engineering and Model Lifecycle strategy, capability roadmap and engineering direction across Network Operations.
• Translate operational priorities into a prioritised portfolio of AI engineering capabilities aligned to reliability, resilience, productivity and customer outcomes.
• Lead the engineering and industrialisation of production-ready AI capabilities, including feature engineering, model integration and deployment patterns.
• Establish reusable AI engineering standards and components that enable consistent, scalable delivery across network and service domains.
• Own the lifecycle of operational AI models, from production acceptance through monitoring, retraining, optimisation and retirement.
• Establish model registries, performance monitoring and controls for accuracy, drift, bias, reliability and operational effectiveness.
• Implement AI governance, explainability, traceability and human-oversight controls within operational AI engineering and model lifecycle practices.
• Partner with AI & Architecture, Operational Security Engineering and governance functions to keep operational AI compliant, secure and trusted.
• Integrate AI engineering with trusted operational data, service topology and Operational Intelligence to deliver context-rich models and decisions.
• Partner with Automation Engineering and Orchestration & Autonomous Operations to safely convert trusted AI decisions into governed operational actions.
• Drive the transition of validated AI capabilities into sustained operational use, with clear ownership, support models and lifecycle accountability.
• Establish outcome measures for model accuracy, drift, adoption and realised business value, and optimise AI engineering and model operating costs.
• Build and lead a high-performing AI Engineering capability combining AI/ML engineering, telecommunications, software engineering and operational disciplines.

Job description

Optus is seeking an AD, AI Engineering Model Lifecycle & Governance leader to drive the engineering, operationalisation and ongoing lifecycle management of AI capabilities across Network Operations.

You will align priorities to reliability, resilience and customer outcomes, industrialise production-ready AI, and implement governance, traceability and human oversight in production environments.