AI Technical Lead

F5 Consultants; West of England; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Perkbox

Cycle-to-Work

24/7 employee support

Sabbatical after two years

Job summary

F5 Consultants is seeking an experienced technical lead to own and deliver AI capabilities within a major transformation program.

You will lead a small AI engineering team, shaping architecture, standards and the long-term AI roadmap while staying hands-on across backend development and production deployments.

Qualifications

• Experience delivering AI functionality into production.
• Hands-on technical leadership with architectural decisions.
• Strong backend experience in distributed systems.
• Proficiency with C#/.NET and Azure stack.
• Experience with Azure OpenAI and related AI tooling.

Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on technical leadership across a multidisciplinary AI engineering team
• Shape the architecture and technical direction for AI across the product suite
• Lead the delivery of LLM, RAG and agentic AI solutions
• Take ideas from discovery and proof of concept through to production
• Establish standards for evaluation, security, observability, governance and cost control
• Work directly with product and operational stakeholders to turn high-level problems into deliverable solutions
• Mentor engineers, review designs and code, and remain actively involved in development
• Assess where AI adds genuine value—and challenge its use where a conventional solution would be better

Skills

Technical leadership

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Architectural decisions

Production AI

Tools

C#/.NET

Azure

Python

Java

Go

Node.js

Azure OpenAI

Azure AI Search

Semantic Kernel

Microsoft Agent Framework

Job description

£70,000 - £80,000 + bonus | Mostly remote

The opportunity

Join an established software business at the beginning of a major AI transformation and take technical ownership of its new AI capability.

This isn't an isolated innovation role or a stream of disposable prototypes. You'll remain hands-on, leading a small team to take AI ideas from an initial business problem through to secure, scalable functionality within established commercial products.

You'll have the backing of a large international technology group, combined with the freedom and visibility of a close-knit R&D team. You'll influence the architecture, engineering standards, delivery approach and long-term AI roadmap.

Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on technical leadership across a multidisciplinary AI engineering team
• Shape the architecture and technical direction for AI across the product suite
• Lead the delivery of LLM, RAG and agentic AI solutions
• Take ideas from discovery and proof of concept through to production
• Establish standards for evaluation, security, observability, governance and cost control
• Work directly with product and operational stakeholders to turn high-level problems into deliverable solutions
• Mentor engineers, review designs and code, and remain actively involved in development
• Assess where AI adds genuine value—and challenge its use where a conventional solution would be better

About you

You'll be an experienced technical lead or senior backend engineer with genuine experience delivering AI functionality into production.

The established product environment is primarily C#/.NET and Microsoft Azure, so experience with this stack would be valuable. However, applications are also welcome from strong backend engineers working with Python, Java, Go or Node.js who understand distributed systems, production AI architecture and can work effectively across technologies.

You’ll combine hands-on engineering depth with the ability to lead others, make architectural decisions and communicate technical trade-offs clearly to non-technical stakeholders.

Experience with Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, RAG, agentic workflows, Semantic Kernel or Microsoft Agent Framework, vector databases, evaluation frameworks and responsible AI controls would be particularly useful.

Salary and benefits

• Up to £80,000 plus bonus
• Mostly remote, with occasional visits to the Bristol office
• The opportunity to build and lead a new AI engineering capability
• Genuine influence over architecture, recruitment and the AI roadmap
• A hands-on leadership role with real product ownership
• Perkbox, Cycle-to-Work scheme and 24/7 employee support
• Sabbatical option after two years

If you want to lead a team building AI that reaches real customers—and have a genuine say in how that capability is created we’d like to hear from you.