AI Engineering Lead — Principal Software Engineer (Hybrid, Belfast)

Ocho; Belfast City District; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work in Belfast

2 days per week in Belfast office

Access to Copilot and multiple LLMs

Strategic AI leadership exposure

Job summary

Ocho is seeking a Principal Software Engineer - AI Engineering Lead in Belfast, offering a hybrid model with 2 days in the office. You will shape how a global engineering organisation builds software with AI, leading without management duties.

You will work across Belfast and the US, turning bold ideas into tangible, scalable solutions. You will embed AI into CI/CD, establish metrics, and coach engineers to adopt AI-first ways while maintaining high quality.

Qualifications

• 10-15 years of hands-on software engineering experience.
• Recent AI-focused commercial experience leading adoption, not just usage.
• End-to-end SDLC knowledge from planning to CI/CD and production.
• Ability to communicate with engineers, Architects, PMs and senior leaders.
• Based in Northern Ireland with Belfast office availability 2 days a week.

Responsibilities

• Shape and lead the AI engineering strategy across a multi-team platform organisation.
• Cut through the volume of AI activity and decide what is genuinely worth adopting.
• Build reusable skills, agents and workflows that engineers can use straight away.
• Run tiger teams with architects, product managers and SMEs to deliver high-value AI use cases.
• Embed AI into CI/CD, testing and release engineering safely and with care.
• Set baseline engineering efficiency metrics and show the impact of every change.
• Champion responsible AI, including security, data protection, governance and human oversight.
• Coach engineers to adopt AI-first ways of working without lowering the quality bar.
• Influence directors and US stakeholders, turning strategy into practical delivery.

Skills

Hands-on software engineering

Experience with AI adoption

Fluency with AI tools

Communication with senior leaders

DORA-style metrics experience

Tools

Copilot

Claude Code

Cursor

LLM frameworks

Job description

Ocho is seeking a Principal Software Engineer - AI Engineering Lead in Belfast, offering a hybrid model with 2 days in the office. You will shape how a global engineering organisation builds software with AI, leading without management duties.

You will work across Belfast and the US, turning bold ideas into tangible, scalable solutions. You will embed AI into CI/CD, establish metrics, and coach engineers to adopt AI-first ways while maintaining high quality.