AI Tech Lead Manager

Universal Music Group UK

Greater London

On-site

GBP 80,000 - 100,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Group Personal Pension Scheme

Private Medical Insurance

25 paid days of annual leave

Cycle to Work Scheme

Subsidised Gym Membership

Job summary

A leading music company in Greater London is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead a team focused on developing an intelligent video search platform. The ideal candidate will have over 7 years of experience in software and ML engineering, with a strong background in technical leadership. This role involves fostering an innovative culture and collaborating with business stakeholders to drive project execution. In addition, applicants should have a passion for music and advanced understanding of AI technologies. Competitive benefits are provided.

Qualifications

7+ years of software/ML engineering experience, including 2+ years in engineering management.
Proven ability to architect and ship complex systems.
Strong proficiency in Git, CI/CD workflows.

Responsibilities

Lead and mentor a team of engineers developing an intelligent video search platform.
Drive resource allocation and planning.
Own the design and evolution of the video search platform.

Skills

Software Engineering

Machine Learning

AI Integration

Leadership

Collaboration

Education

Computer Science or related technical field

Tools

Elasticsearch

Python

Docker

AWS

Job description

Join to apply for the Engineering Manager role at Universal Music Group UK.

Music is Universal.

It’s the passionate and dedicated team at Universal Music who help make us the world’s leading music company. From A&R to finance, legal to digital, sales to marketing, Universal Music is the place to grow and develop your career within a truly commercial and innovative business that leads in everything it does.

Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, age, marital status, background, pregnancy, or caring responsibilities. We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought within our teams and are fully committed to embracing the talents of people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and other forms of neurocognitive variation.

We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments to recruitment, workplaces, and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles. If you need us to make any reasonable adjustments for you from application onwards, including alternatives to the online form or to disclose a neurocognitive condition, please email UniversalMusicCareers@umusic.com.

Department

Part of the Global Technology organization, the Music and Advanced Machine Learning Lab (MAML)’s mission is to invent and build state of the art AI/ML tools to support and empower Artists, and industry professionals. The MAML covers the full research & development lifecycle, from explorative research to prototypes to industrial scale products. It typically undertakes projects with applications such as, but not limited to, content understanding, content augmentation, creative tools, search, recommendation, etc. We are curious, passionate and committed to push the envelope in AI for music. If you are excited at the idea of working on state‑of‑the‑art AI at industry scale and make an impact, we want to hear from you!

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to lead a team of engineers developing an intelligent video search platform that enables precise and flexible discovery across UMG’s extensive audiovisual catalogue. You will shape the technical vision, architecture, and execution for a platform that fuses media content processing, AI‑driven search, metadata enrichment, to power discovery for our partners and internal creative teams.

Key Responsibilities

Lead and mentor a team of backend, frontend, and ML engineers focused on video intelligence and retrieval systems.
Foster a collaborative, inclusive culture of innovation, technical excellence, and rapid delivery.
Partner with business stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical deliverables.
Drive resource allocation, planning, and metrics‑based delivery management.

Technical Direction and Delivery

Own the design and evolution of an AI‑driven video search and discovery platform.
Oversee development of scalable ingestion, indexing, retrieval systems, and user‑facing application (incl. backend and frontend/UI).
Integrate multimodal ML models (video, audio, and text) to enable deep content understanding.
Ensure system performance, availability, and security across cloud‑based infrastructures.
If and when required, make hands‑on contributions to the technical development.

Skills And Experience Required

Must have

Strong background in Computer Science, Software Engineering, ML Ops, Artificial Intelligence or related technical field.
7+ years of software/ML engineering experience, including 2+ years in an engineering management role.
Proven ability to architect and ship complex systems.
Deep understanding of content (video, audio) processing pipelines, metadata systems, and ML integration.
Expertise in information retrieval methods and technology, (e.g. Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, vector databases)
Experience with AI models across multiple modalities (video, audio, text).
Proficiency in modern programming languages (Python, Java, or C++).
Strong proficiency in Git, CI/CD workflows, and containerization (Docker/Kubernetes).
Proficiency with Linux environments and cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Google Cloud Platform)
Champion software development best practices, code quality, documentation, observability.
Excellent communication and leadership skills, with experience managing distributed teams.
Curious, self‑motivated, and proactive.

Nice to have

Experience with LLMs and associated tools (e.g. LangChain)
Experience implementing high cybersecurity standards
Experience delivering full stack projects
Previous experience in the media, entertainment, or creative technology industries.
Passion for music and/or deep musical understanding

Key Behaviours

Visionary Technologist: You think beyond immediate problems — connecting data, AI, and creativity to imagine what’s next for video discovery.
Empowering Leader: You bring out the best in your team by creating psychological safety, celebrating wins, and mentoring with empathy.
Curious and Experimental: You’re energized by exploring new tools and ideas, running experiments, and learning fast from results.
Outcome‑Oriented: You’re driven by impact — building systems that deliver measurable creative and business value.
Collaborative Partner: You thrive in cross‑functional settings, bridging technical, business and creative disciplines seamlessly.
Culturally Connected: You have a genuine interest in music and the role of technology in supporting culture.

Benefits