Head of Artificial Intelligence

VirtueTech Recruitment Group; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work

Job summary

VirtueTech Recruitment Group is seeking a senior AI Engineer for a fast-growing Energy Trading house at the start of a major enterprise-wide AI journey. This greenfield leadership role is hands-on, shaping direction and building a dedicated AI team while delivering production-grade solutions.

You will lead from the front, turning ideas into prototypes, POCs and scalable implementations across trading, operations, and back-office functions, with strong governance and compliance.

Qualifications

• Senior AI engineering in an enterprise setting.
• Strong hands-on capability; not a purely strategic role.
• Experience taking AI ideas through POCs, demos to production.
• Proficiency with LLMs, Generative AI and autonomous AI agents.
• Ability to integrate AI with enterprise data and systems.
• Solid understanding of AI governance, security and compliance.
• Energy Trading/Commodities knowledge is highly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead the AI function and define the technical direction.
• Translate business ideas into working prototypes and scalable solutions.
• Guide current and future AI hires and build the team.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to unlock enterprise value from AI.

Skills

Senior AI Engineering

Hands-on engineering

POCs & demos

LLMs

Generative AI

Autonomous AI agents

Enterprise data

AI governance

Data security & compliance

Energy Trading experience

Building AI teams

Job description

An Artificial intelligence engineer is needed for a rapidly growing Energy Trading house who are at the beginning of a major enterprise-wide AI journey. This is a greenfield AI leadership role. The business has already invested in AI and currently has three AI engineers/graduates working on smaller initiatives, but they now need someone senior enough to define the direction, shape the team and, importantly, remain hands-on.

Desired AI use cases: Reconciliation | Counterparty & Legal Contracts | Back-office automation | P&L

The key question for this hire is: \"How do we use AI across the enterprise - and, more importantly, how do we actually execute it?\"

The business has plenty of ideas around AI. What they are missing is someone who can turn those ideas into working solutions, demonstrate what is possible through POCs and demos, and then take successful initiatives towards enterprise-scale implementation.

This is why the successful person needs to be senior, whilst still being highly technical and hands-on.

You will have the opportunity to lead the AI function, guide existing and future hires, establish the technical direction and work directly with the business to identify where AI can deliver genuine value.

This hire will lead to a dedicated AI team being built round them

What will you be working on?

The business is already considering a wide range of AI use cases across Trading, Operations, Legal, Finance and Back Office, including:

• Broker and execution reconciliation
• Automating reconciliation processes more broadly
• Counterparty and legal contract analysis
• Connecting LLMs to internal databases and business data
• Making information such as daily P&L more accessible to Trade Analysts
• PowerPoint and document preparation
• Contract analysis across Legal and Counterparty functions
• Autonomous agents capable of performing tasks such as broker reconciliation and P&L processes

The role will be about taking these ideas beyond conversations and into working prototypes, POCs and ultimately production-grade enterprise solutions.

It is highly advantages if you have prior experience delivering the above projects

AI + Compliance - This is a highly regulated Energy Trading environment, so understanding how to deploy AI responsibly will be critical.

The company already has an internal AI policy which you will need to work within. You therefore need to understand not simply what AI can do, but how AI can be implemented within a regulated enterprise environment where security, compliance, data governance and confidentiality are fundamental.

Energy Trading / Commodities experience is highly desirable and, for this particular role, could be the differentiator.

The business is looking for someone who understands the environment, the data, the workflows and the challenges associated with Energy Trading.

Experience delivering similar AI / ML / LLM projects within Energy, Commodities or a comparable Trading environment would be highly valuable.

What they are looking for:

• Senior AI Engineering experience within an enterprise environment
• Strong hands-on engineering capability - this is not a purely strategic leadership role
• Experience taking AI ideas through POCs, demos and into production
• Experience with LLMs, Generative AI and/or autonomous AI agents
• Experience integrating AI with enterprise data and business systems
• Experience identifying and delivering practical AI use cases
• Ability to explain complex AI concepts to senior business stakeholders
• Experience building or shaping AI engineering teams
• Strong understanding of AI governance, data security and compliance
• Energy Trading / Commodities experience strongly preferred
• A track record of solving genuine business problems through AI

Package:

Hybrid: 3 Days a Week Onsite, London