Engineering Team Lead – Tech

Jobtailor; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Savanta is seeking a hands-on engineering leader to head the Virtual Personas team, our synthetic personas platform for market research. You will own the product roadmap, mentor up to four engineers, and drive a cloud-first strategy.

You will develop full-stack solutions with Python/FastAPI and React/TypeScript, implement automated testing and CI gates, and harden AI features against prompt injection while working closely with customers to translate needs into scalable architecture.

Qualifications

• Experience leading agile rapid release iterations on AI/LLM-powered products.
• Extensive experience with Python and modern async web frameworks or closely related languages.
• Hands-on experience building or maintaining LLM-powered applications, incl. prompt design & multi-provider integration.
• Strong RDBMS experience, such as PostgreSQL.
• Comfort with document stores (MongoDB) and caching layers (Redis).
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot).

Responsibilities

• Lead agile rapid release iterations for AI/LLM-powered products.
• Deliver the product roadmap and set technical direction.
• Mentor up to four engineers in a cross-functional team.
• Embed automated testing and CI quality gates into the product.
• Interact with customers to translate needs into scalable architecture.

Skills

Agile leadership

Python development

Full-stack development

LLM application development

Automated testing

Tools

FastAPI

React

TypeScript

PostgreSQL

MongoDB

Redis

Async SQLAlchemy

CI quality gates

Prompt Design

Job description

• Lead the team responsible for Virtual Personas, Savanta’s synthetic personas solution for market research
• Set direction for Virtual Personas as part of the wider team
• Deliver the product roadmap
• Lead up to four engineers in a cross-functional agile team
• Drive adoption of cloud-first technologies
• Perform full-stack development across Python/FastAPI services and React/TypeScript front ends
• Improve team processes for iterative development
• Embed automated testing and CI quality gates into the AI product
• Champion responsible and secure LLM use, including prompt-injection awareness, defensive design and sound data handling
• Set technical direction for the team
• Interact directly with customers, understand their needs and generalise them
• Build fast, scalable and flexible systems within budget
• Mentor, support and encourage developers
• Conduct regular one-to-ones, set objectives and assist with tailored development plans
• Run project kick-offs, stakeholder check-ins and retrospectives
• Use spikes to de-risk work and guide iteration toward long-term scalable architecture

Requirements

• Experience leading agile rapid release iterations, ideally on fast-moving AI/LLM-powered products
• Extensive experience specifically with Python and modern async web frameworks, or experience in closely related languages
• Hands‑on experience building or maintaining LLM-powered applications, including prompt design, multi‑provider integration and agent orchestration
• Strong RDBMS experience, such as PostgreSQL
• Comfort with document stores, such as MongoDB, and caching layers, such as Redis
• Comfortable working with AI‑assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor and GitHub Copilot
• Willingness to learn new technologies, emerging AI tooling, the business and platform, and ways of working
• Full product delivery mindset focused on a tested user experience
• Test‑first approach and ability to establish CI quality gates, including lint, type‑check and test
• Experience running project kick-offs, stakeholder check-ins and retrospectives
• Comfort with ambiguity, shifting priorities and managed change
• Confidence using spikes to de-risk work and guiding iteration toward scalable architecture
• Ability to harden AI features against prompt injection and unbounded model behaviour
• Desirable: FastAPI, async SQLAlchemy and/or Node/Express
• Desirable: React/TypeScript front‑end development
• Desirable: LangChain, LangGraph or other multi‑agent/LLM orchestration frameworks
• Desirable: Azure services or AWS equivalents
• Desirable: LLM observability/evaluation tooling and resilience patterns for third‑party AI providers
• Desirable: Awareness of GDPR and EU AI Act considerations
• Desirable: Informal leadership or formal management experience
• Desirable: Experience working across team boundaries with stakeholders
• Unable to offer visa sponsorship

Core Competencies

Demonstrates expertise in leading agile teams to deliver AI/LLM-powered products, with a strong focus on full-stack development using Python and modern web frameworks. Capable of mentoring developers, driving cloud-first technology adoption, and ensuring robust product delivery through automated testing and CI quality gates.

Highest-signal resume keywords

• Python Development
• Full-Stack Development
• Agile Leadership
• LLM Application Development
• Automated Testing

Hard Skills

• Python
• FastAPI
• React
• TypeScript
• PostgreSQL
• MongoDB
• Redis
• Async SQLAlchemy
• CI Quality Gates
• Prompt Design

Soft Skills

• Mentoring
• Stakeholder Management
• Adaptability
• Team Collaboration
• Communication

Industry Keywords

• AI
• LLM
• Agile
• GDPR
• EU AI Act

Tools & Technologies

• Claude Code
• Cursor
• GitHub Copilot
• Azure Services
• AWS