Agent Engineer

A&O Shearman; Belfast; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading global law firm in Belfast is looking for an Agent Engineer to join its IT team. In this role, you will design and develop intelligent agents and bots to enhance operational efficiency while collaborating with various stakeholders. The ideal candidate has over 5 years in IT, with expertise in the Microsoft Power Platform. This position offers a dynamic work environment with opportunities for growth and development.

Benefits

Exceptional training and development

Inclusive work environment

Support for wellbeing

Qualifications

• At least 5 years background in the IT industry.
• 2-3 years experience in developing intelligent agents and bots.
• Proven project management and stakeholder skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop intelligent agents and bots.
• Integrate agents with enterprise technologies and platforms.
• Participate in sprint planning and manage the team backlog.

Skills

intelligent agent development

Microsoft Power Platform

agile working practices

stakeholder engagement

software architecture knowledge

Job description

Job Description

We have an exciting opportunity for an Agent Engineer to join our growing IT team based in the A&O Shearman Belfast office.

The core of the global technology department's mission is to provide stable, reliable, and secure platforms and services to our partners, staff and clients and fulfil our regulatory obligations across 30+ countries. To ensure that a consistent and standardised IT service is delivered to all offices, IT is managed and led as a global function, enabling all offices to benefit from complete systems integration and economies of scale. We have around 400 technologists based predominantly in the UK, Singapore and increasingly in the US.

The Team - Enterprise Technology Platforms

The Enterprise Technology Platforms team is responsible for shaping the strategic direction and roadmap of the firm's core technology platforms. These platforms act as the foundational 'building blocks' that enable the delivery of strategic business outcomes. The team ensures that platform services are continuously improved, aligned with business needs, and prioritised effectively. By designing, building and managing these platforms, the team simplifies and enhances the firm's technology landscape-making it more efficient, scalable and fit for purpose.

Reporting to the Intelligent Automation & Agent Lead, this role designs, develops and maintains intelligent agents & bots to improve efficiency and solve problems across the firm. The role is responsible for directing and working with internal colleagues external third-party service providers.
The role is accountable for delivering agents that the firm develops internally in line with firm wide or departmental objectives, policies and standards. It will be required to work as part of cross-functional teams and orchestrate all the tools at their disposal to deploy agents and bots into production systems and processes.

What you will do

• Plan, design and prototype intelligent agents and bots that can reason and act to solve complex problems.
• Develop autonomous systems powered by Large Language Models, ensuring alignment with the firm's strategy, standards and policies.
• Integrate agents and bots to the tools, data and services needed to operate efficiently through the use of APIs and other enterprise technologies and platforms.
• Participate in sprint planning, retrospectives and demos and actively manage the backlog of the team.
• Work with fee earners and business teams to design, build, test and deploy solutions that meet their needs whilst following all architectural best practices and procedures.
• Write unit, integration and acceptance tests.
• Work with Power Platform & Automation and Technology Services team members to ensure that solutions are robust and to support ongoing maintenance, troubleshooting and upgrades.
• Work with stakeholders from the AI Platform, Software Engineering, Data Governance and Information Security teams to ensure solutions are performant, compliant and secure.
• Act as the focal point for matters related to agent engineering, providing expert guidance to other teams when required.
• Support service provider reviews to assess performance against service targets, drive innovation and ensure any remediation activities are being delivered.
• Contribute to the management of the Intelligent Automation & Agents team benefits delivery, developing estimates and tracking performance against plans and ROI.
• Identify and pursue opportunities for continuous improvement in the firm's usage of intelligent agents and bots.
• Engaging and assisting with other forms of intelligent automation as and when the business requires it.

What you will have

• Direct experience in intelligent agent development, specifically using integrations and features of the Microsoft Power Platform, preferably within the legal or professional services sector.
• Expertise in crafting effective prompts to guide LLMs and ensure desired agent behavior.
• Proven experience in orchestrating multiple agents across layers and toolsets.
• Knowledge and understanding of software architecture, patterns, testing and debugging.
• Solid understanding and experience in use of the testing pyramid.
• Experience of modern development methods, agile working practices and work item tracking tools.
• Knowledge of current IT trends and ability to be source of good practice and innovation across the wider engineering community.
• Proven track record of managing projects and changes. Gathering requirements and working with stakeholders.
• At least 5 years background in the IT industry, with 2-3 years experience in developing intelligent agents and bots ideally within the Power Platform ecosystem.
• Proven stakeholder engagement and presentation skills.
• Ability to work cross functionally, building strong relationships with stakeholders.
• Proven business acumen and ability to understand how they add value the function, firm or clients.
• Ability to lead and develop team members.
• Promotes the firm's values at all times and is comfortable working with a wide range of people and departments.

A&O Shearman is a global industry-leading law firm, with nearly 50 offices in 28 countries worldwide. Our fluency in English law, US law, and the laws of the world's most dynamic markets, enables us to provide unmatched insight and seamless delivery to clients. We work on challenging and important deals and disputes that have the potential to shape the future.

We offer exceptional opportunities for our people; opportunities to work for the world's leading businesses; to transform the status quo, and to deliver your best work, helping you and your career to thrive, while delivering unparalleled outcomes for our clients.

Whether you're helping clients solve complex challenges, transforming the ways we manage our business, or ensuring the smooth running of our operations, this is an environment where you can belong and excel. We provide first-rate training and development; we are committed to an inclusive environment, and we provide support and ways of working that help you optimize your wellbeing.