AI-Native Systems Engineering Lead

BT plc; United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

15% on target bonus

Company car or £5,500 cash alternative

Private healthcare for self and family

BT Pension scheme

25 days annual leave

Flexible benefits

Training and development opportunities

Job summary

BT plc in the United Kingdom seeks a Principal AI-Native Systems Engineer to lead the design of cloud-native, data-intensive and AI-enabled systems across RAN, Core, data and automation domains.

You will own the system engineering discipline, translate business problems into robust technical designs, and ensure secure, testable delivery from concept to production with direct collaboration with users, architects, product owners and engineers.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing complex software systems and distributed architectures.
• Practical use of AI-assisted engineering tools to improve delivery and quality.
• Strong fundamentals in algorithms, data structures, concurrency, OS, networking and APIs.
• Experience with cloud platforms and cost-conscious deployment patterns, esp. AWS.
• Proven ability to set direction and lead teams through ambiguity.
• Embed secure-by-design, test-first and observable practices into delivery.
• Excellent ability to translate user needs into technical specifications.
• Strong communication with stakeholders and engineers alike.
• Curiosity about system internals and fast learning of new tech.

Responsibilities

• Define end-to-end AI-native, cloud-native architectures and interfaces.
• Turn business problems into deterministic technical specifications and acceptance criteria.
• Direct AI-native delivery with human accountability for correctness.
• Set reusable engineering patterns, guardrails and governance practices.
• Design scalable, secure, observable distributed systems across cloud and data pipelines.
• Ensure production readiness with collaboration from AI-Native Test Engineers.
• Translate complex concepts for senior stakeholders and technical teams.
• Coach engineers in AI-native practices and accountable decision-making.
• Drive continuous improvement from delivery feedback and production signals.

Skills

Systems engineering

AI-native engineering

Cloud AWS

Go/Rust/C/C++/Java

Architecture leadership

Security & governance

Observability

Communication

Learning agility

Job description

BT plc in the United Kingdom seeks a Principal AI-Native Systems Engineer to lead the design of cloud-native, data-intensive and AI-enabled systems across RAN, Core, data and automation domains.

You will own the system engineering discipline, translate business problems into robust technical designs, and ensure secure, testable delivery from concept to production with direct collaboration with users, architects, product owners and engineers.