Automation & AI Engineer

Mishcon de Reya LLP; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Mishcon de Reya LLP is seeking an Automation & AI Engineer to turn AI/innovation roadmaps into practical capabilities. You will design and implement AI-enabled workflows, build agents and MCP integrations, and set engineering standards across Python/TypeScript, CI/CD, and security.

You will collaborate with Product, Data, Architecture and Security teams to deliver production-grade automation for legal practice and business operations.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering fundamentals including version control, testing, code review, documentation.
• Experience with APIs, integrations, cloud services and event-driven/workflow-based solutions.
• Ability to move from unclear problem to working prototype and improve with feedback.
• Collaborates with Product, Data, Architecture, Security and business specialists.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and build of complex AI-enabled and automated workflows across legal practice and business operations.
• Translate priorities into technical approaches, prototypes and delivery plans with clear trade-offs.
• Set practical standards for Python and TypeScript development, APIs, testing, source control, CI/CD, observability and support readiness.
• Review designs and code, coach engineers and create reusable patterns.
• Design and build agents and MCP clients/servers that connect models to firm data and workflows.

Skills

Python

TypeScript

APIs

Cloud services

CI/CD

LLM apps

Agents

MCP

Security

Multidisciplinary collaboration

Tools

Python

TypeScript

Git

Azure

Foundry

CI/CD tooling

Job description

The Department

Our Technology team continues to go from strength to strength, playing a vital role in firm-wide innovation and strategy. Far from being a support function, Technology is integral to the firm's growth agenda, backed by strong leadership engagement and sustained investment.

The Team

The AI and Engineering team develops practical AI, automation and integration capability for legal practice and business operations. It works closely with Product, Data, Architecture, Security and operational teams to turn valuable ideas into secure, maintainable services, while retaining space for controlled experimentation and rapid learning.

The Role

Reporting to the AI & Innovation Lead, the Automation & AI Engineer is the senior technical specialist responsible for turning the AI and innovation roadmap into working capability. The role spans applied AI, agents, Model Context Protocol (MCP), workflow automation and systems integration, providing technical direction across experiments, proofs of concept and production services.

This is a hands-on role, not an architecture-only or research position. It will build solutions directly, set practical engineering patterns and help the Applied AI Engineer and Automation Engineer make sound technical decisions. This is a senior individual-contributor role. It provides day-to-day technical direction, coaching and peer review across the engineering team, while formal line management remains with the AI & Innovation Lead.

Duties And Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and build of complex AI-enabled and automated workflows across legal practice and business operations.
• Work against the prioritised AI and innovation roadmap, with the Product Manager accountable for product priorities and outcomes and the AI & Innovation Lead accountable for innovation direction and team capability.
• Translate product priorities into achievable technical approaches, prototypes and delivery plans, making build, buy and integration trade-offs clear.
• Set practical standards for Python and TypeScript development, APIs, testing, source control, CI/CD, observability and support readiness.
• Review designs and code, coach engineering colleagues and create reusable patterns rather than one-off solutions.

AI, agents and MCP

• Design and build agents and MCP clients and servers that connect approved models to firm data, tools and workflows.
• Define secure tool boundaries, authentication, authorisation, audit trails and human approval points for agentic actions.
• Set evaluation and release standards for AI-enabled services, reviewing evidence on task completion, quality, safety, latency, reliability and cost before production use.
• Manage token usage and model choice pragmatically, balancing performance, context, reliability and consumption cost.

Experimentation and product engineering

• Use AI-assisted software development to create prototypes quickly, while applying engineering review and production controls before wider use.
• Work with the Product Manager and AI & Innovation Lead to shape experiments, PoCs and MVPs with clear hypotheses, measures and stop, iterate or scale decisions.
• Productionise successful experiments through appropriate architecture, testing, monitoring, runbooks, release controls and ownership.

Risk, service and collaboration

• Partner with Security, Risk, Data and Architecture to protect confidential information and meet firm standards.
• Build fallback paths, failure handling and operational monitoring into AI and automation services.
• Support live services, investigate failures and turn incidents and evaluation findings into engineering improvements.

Skills and Experience

• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including version control, testing, code review, documentation and secure development.
• Experience working with APIs, integrations, cloud services and event-driven or workflow-based solutions.
• Ability to move from an unclear problem to a working prototype, then improve it using evidence and user feedback.
• Confidence working with Product, Data, Architecture, Security and business specialists in a multidisciplinary environment.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.
• A pragmatic approach to experimentation, with good judgement about what is safe to test and what is ready to operate.
• Use of approved identity, secrets-management and service-connection patterns, avoiding embedded credentials and unmanaged service accounts.
• Commitment to accessible and usable user-facing applications and workflow interfaces.
• Substantial hands-on experience building and operating AI-enabled applications, automation or integration services.
• Strong Python and TypeScript capability, with experience designing production APIs and cloud-native integrations.
• Practical experience with LLM applications, tool use, agents, RAG, evaluation and MCP or comparable integration patterns.
• Evidence of technical leadership through design decisions, peer review, reusable standards and coaching.

Desirable

• Experience in legal services, professional services or another regulated, knowledge-intensive environment.
• Experience with Azure, Git-based delivery, CI/CD, telemetry and production support.
• A strong portfolio of working software, prototypes or automation is more important than a specific degree.
• Experience with Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Copilot Studio, Power Platform or comparable AI and automation services.
• Experience designing cost controls, token budgets or routing strategies for consumption-based AI services.

Please note that this job profile is not an exhaustive list of duties but merely an outline of the key components of the role. You may be required by your line manager to take on additional responsibilities when requested.

About

About Mishcon de Reya Group

The Mishcon de Reya Group is an independent, international professional services business with law at its heart, employing over 1400 people with over 650 lawyers. It includes the law firm Mishcon de Reya LLP and a collection of leading consultancy businesses that complement the firm's legal services.

Mishcon de Reya LLP is based in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Singapore, Hong Kong and UAE. The firm services an international community of clients and provides advice in situations where the constraints of geography often do not apply.The work the firm undertakes is cross-border, multi-jurisdictional and complex, centred around three increasingly entwined and connected sectors: the Innovation Economy, Private Wealth and Capital, and Real Estate. The firm is known as a disputes powerhouse with a formidable capacity firmwide for dispute resolution.

The Mishcon de Reya Group includes consultancy businesses MDR Discover , MDR Mayfair (in London, Singapore and Dubai), MDR ONE , and MDRi (in Hong Kong). The Group also includes MDR Lab , which invests in the most promising early stage legaltech companies as well as the Mishcon Academy, its in-house place of learning and platform for thought leadership.

In 2024, the Group announced its first strategic acquisition in the alternative legal services market, flexible legal resourcing business Flex Legal. It also acquired a majority stake in Somos, a global group actions management business.

We strive to create a fully diverse and inclusive workplace where all our people are empowered to fulfil their potential. We are proud of our agile working culture and are always happy to talk flexible working.