Founding AI Engineer & Tech Lead — Hands-on, Hybrid

Yolk Recruitment Ltd; Cardiff; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Yolk Recruitment Ltd is seeking a Divisional Lead Engineer (Digital & AI) to join an international organisation at the start of its AI engineering journey. You’ll stay hands-on while guiding technical direction and governance across global teams, building AI-enabled applications and automation.

You will lead design and delivery of AI-powered solutions using LLMs, AI agents and RAG architectures, partnering with infrastructure and cloud teams to scale responsibly.

Qualifications

• Extensive software engineering background with leadership experience.
• Previous roles as Technical Lead, Lead Engineer or Principal Engineer.
• Experience with React/Next.js/Node.js and modern frameworks.
• Experience building AI-enabled applications or automation solutions.
• Knowledge of LLMs, AI agents or RAG architectures.
• Strong understanding of software architecture and engineering best practice.
• Experience mentoring engineers and guiding technical direction.
• Excellent communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical direction of a new Digital & AI capability.
• Design, develop and deliver AI-powered applications and automation solutions.
• Build and integrate solutions using LLMs, AI agents and RAG architectures.
• Define development standards, engineering frameworks and best practices.
• Provide technical governance to support safe and scalable AI adoption.
• Mentor developers and support citizen developers across the business.
• Work across React, Next.js, Node.js and AWS.
• Collaborate with infrastructure, cloud and wider technology teams.
• Shape long-term AI strategy and implementation across an international organisation.
• Balance hands-on engineering with technical leadership and stakeholder engagement.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Tech direction

AI applications

LLMs / AI agents / RAG

Software architecture

Mentoring engineers

Stakeholder comms

Hands-on coding

Tools

React

Next.js

Node.js

AWS

Job description

Yolk Recruitment Ltd is seeking a Divisional Lead Engineer (Digital & AI) to join an international organisation at the start of its AI engineering journey. You’ll stay hands-on while guiding technical direction and governance across global teams, building AI-enabled applications and automation.

You will lead design and delivery of AI-powered solutions using LLMs, AI agents and RAG architectures, partnering with infrastructure and cloud teams to scale responsibly.