AI Technical Lead

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

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Mostly remote with Bristol office ad-h

Sabbatical after two years

Job summary

F5 is seeking an AI Technical Lead to own and advance a new AI capability within its established software business. You will stay hands-on while leading a small team to turn AI ideas into secure, scalable features across commercial products.

Backed by a large international group, you will influence architecture, engineering standards and the long-term AI roadmap, with mostly remote work and occasional Bristol office visits. You’ll mentor engineers and drive real product ownership.

Qualifications

• Experience delivering AI functionality into production within a product environment.
• Strong hands-on engineering depth with leadership and architectural decision-making.
• Exposure to Azure OpenAI, vector databases and responsible AI controls is advantageous.

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

C#/.NET

Azure

Python

Distributed systems

AI / LLM

Team leadership

Tools

Azure OpenAI

Azure AI Search

Semantic Kernel

Microsoft Agent Framework

Job description

AI Technical Lead

£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 primarilyC#/.NET and Microsoft Azure, so experience with this stack would be valuable. However, applications are also welcome from strong backend engineers working withPython, 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.