AI Tech Lead Developer

Sandhata Technologies Limited; City of Westminster; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Sandhata Technologies Limited seeks an experienced AI Tech Lead to guide a team building enterprise-grade Generative & Agentic AI applications. You will combine hands-on Python engineering with DevOps enablement and LLM integrations to deliver secure, scalable services.

You will lead the AI developers, shape API standards, and ensure observability and cost benchmarking across distributed cloud environments. Strong collaboration with platform teams is essential.

Qualifications

• Experience leading AI/ML teams in enterprise environments.
• Hands-on technical leadership with production-grade AI systems.
• Strong Python engineering and experience with FastAPI.
• Solid DevOps mindset with CI/CD and observability best practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of AI developers to build core AI services and features.
• Develop and optimise Python-based AI components including prompt orchestration.
• Integrate LLMs with enterprise systems and ensure security and observability.
• Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps).
• Collaborate with platform leads and architects to productionise AI services.

Skills

Leadership

Python engineering

DevOps

Observability

Security standards

Tools

FastAPI

Azure DevOps

LLM integration

AWS services

Job description

Job Overview

We are seeking an experienced, hands‑on AI Tech Lead Developer to lead a team to develop core services, features and capabilities on an enterprise‑grade Generative & Agentic AI application for a large global insurer. This is a hands‑on tech lead role that blends strong Python engineering with DevOps enablement and integration of LLM technologies into secure, scalable enterprise environments. Lead a team of AI developers to develop core services, features and capabilities on an enterprise‑grade Generative & Agentic AI application.

Responsibilities

• Experience, and hands on, with Generative and Agentic AI patterns including LLM integration, RAG architectures, prompt‑driven workflows, and orchestration of AI services and agents.
• Develop and optimise Python‑based AI components including prompt orchestration, output validation, and evaluation tooling.
• Integrate LLMs with enterprise systems, observability, and security frameworks.
• Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines aligned to engineering standards (Azure DevOps primarily).
• Collaborate closely with platform leads, architects, and design teams to ensure reliable operationalisation of AI services.
• Support benchmarking, evaluation, and experiment tracking for LLM performance and cost.
• Contribute to RAG implementations and data access patterns supporting enterprise use cases.
• Help shape API standards, reusable patterns, and documentation for platform adoption.
• Troubleshoot and optimise performance across distributed systems and cloud services.

What Success Looks Like

• An efficient, proactive and engaged development team.
• Efficient, secure, and reusable AI components delivered into production.
• Improved engineering velocity through automation and DevOps best practices.
• Stable services, with observability and evaluation built in from day one.
• Platform teams and application teams love using what you build.
• Clear documentation and fast onboarding for future use cases.

The ideal candidate will bring experience of leading engineering teams, practical AI development experience, strong automation skills, and the curiosity to solve emerging engineering challenges in this rapidly evolving space.

Required Skills

• Strong Python engineering in production systems with FastAPI.
• Strong Java engineering in production systems.
• Working knowledge of Generative & Agentic AI technologies and Large Language Models.
• Experience evaluating LLM performance and prompt handling complexities.
• Solid DevOps mindset with CI/CD expertise and observability best practices.
• Comfortable working in regulated enterprise environments with strict security controls.
• Experience integrating AI services into real‑world apps or workflows.
• Knowledge of authentication, secret management, network boundaries, and model access governance.
• Development of AWS services: EC2, EKS, S3, SQS, Bedrock and AgentCore

Preferred Skills

• Kong API Gateway, Kong Mesh, Flux CD.
• RESTful API development (FastAPI preferred), microservices, Terraform with GitOps workflows.
• Prompt evaluation, observability & red teaming tools (like Arize, Promptfoo).
• Experience with SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL databases.
• Exposure to RAG patterns and vector search technologies.

Behavioural Competencies

• Proactive tech lead who helps the team to identify gaps and drives solutions without waiting for tickets.
• Comfortable working in ambiguous emerging domains where best practice is evolving.
• Collaborative communicator able to influence and gain trust across engineering, data, and product teams.
• Curiosity to explore and adopt new AI techniques in a structured, secure way.
• Bias toward automating everything to reduce toil and accelerate delivery.

Sandhata is a global consultancy delivering Next Gen Engineering Services that transform how businesses work. We specialise in Digital Transformation, DevOps & Cloud, Integration, Automation, Low-Code and AI Application Development. With offices in the UK and India, we partner with leading organisations worldwide to deliver agile, digital‑first solutions.

We are trusted by clients across multiple industries to design and implement cutting‑edge technology that streamlines operations, drives IT efficiency, and enables innovation at scale.

Sandhata is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.