European AI Lab Leader - Build and Scale

Alvarez & Marsal Deutschland GmbH; Madrid; On-site; EUR 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Alvarez & Marsal Deutschland GmbH in Madrid seeks a Head of the AI Lab to lead a pan-European AI engineering capability embedded in client teams, delivering production-ready AI agents, automations, and accelerators.

You will hire the founding engineers, define end-to-end capability, and set governance, quality gates, and guardrails while partnering with AI Managing Directors to scale opportunities across Europe. Frequent travel to client sites is anticipated.

Qualifications

• Built something from the ground up (team, practice, delivery center) and owned its success.
• Technical credibility without being the day-to-day architect.
• Commercial fluency to build the business case and run it.
• Executive presence alongside AI Leaders with CIOs/CFOs/partners.
• Motivation for creating playbooks, teams, and standards.
• Based in Madrid with frequent European travel; forward-deployed with clients.
• Fluent English; a second European language is advantageous; other languages welcome.
• Right to work in the EU preferred; sponsorship considered for exceptional candidates.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead A&M's AI engineering capability in Europe; own team, operating model, delivery standards, and market positioning.
• Design capability end to end: engagement lifecycle, definition of done, quality gates, handover standards.
• Hire founding engineers and architects; set a high hiring bar; establish recruitment engine for growth.
• Own team development: training, certification, platform depth as technology evolves.
• Build depth across major enterprise AI platforms; establish tooling, environments, assets, accelerators, reference architectures.
• Define collaboration with partner engineering firms; scale the permanent team.
• Shape opportunities with AI Managing Directors across Europe; position capability with clients and practices.
• Maintain a single view of the pipeline; match capacity to demand; be accountable for growth and performance.

Skills

Executive presence

Commercial fluency

Technical credibility

Ground-up build

Fluent English

Second European language

Job description

Alvarez & Marsal Deutschland GmbH in Madrid seeks a Head of the AI Lab to lead a pan-European AI engineering capability embedded in client teams, delivering production-ready AI agents, automations, and accelerators.

You will hire the founding engineers, define end-to-end capability, and set governance, quality gates, and guardrails while partnering with AI Managing Directors to scale opportunities across Europe. Frequent travel to client sites is anticipated.