Lead AI Engineer

EC1 Partners; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

EC1 Partners in London is seeking a Lead AI Engineer to own the design and delivery of production-grade Generative AI and agentic AI solutions, directly with Front Office users.

This hands-on role combines architecture, development and deployment, close collaboration with revenue-focused teams, and governance-aligned risk management.

You will shape the AI roadmap, build reusable components, and mentor peers while maintaining a pragmatic balance between experimentation and real business impact.

Qualifications

• Strong production software engineering background with scalable, robust systems.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, Generative AI and modern AI/ML frameworks.
• Experience delivering AI solutions beyond the prototype/POC stage.
• Ability to translate business problems into production technology.
• Experience working directly with Front Office, revenue-generating or client-facing users.
• Comfortable operating within a regulated environment.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and deploy Generative AI and agentic AI solutions into production.
• Work directly with Front Office users to identify high-value AI opportunities.
• Translate complex commercial problems into robust technical solutions.
• Build reusable AI frameworks, components and capabilities.
• Develop solutions across workflows including research, pricing, execution, booking and post-trade.
• Ensure solutions meet appropriate security, compliance, model risk and governance standards.
• Support AI solutions once deployed into production.
• Work closely with Product, Technology and senior business stakeholders.
• Contribute to the technical direction of a growing AI engineering capability.

Skills

Production software

Generative AI

Front Office

React

APIs / Microservices

OAuth / Okta

AI libraries

Tools

AWS Bedrock

Serverless

Job description

Lead AI Engineer - Generative AI / Agentic AI

Location: London - Hybrid (3 days per week in office, 2 remote)

The Opportunity

We are partnering with a global financial markets organisation that is expanding its AI capability and looking for a Lead AI Engineer to join a newly established team.

This is a hands-on engineering role focused on building production-grade AI solutions directly alongside Front Office users. You will work closely with revenue-generating teams to understand their workflows, identify opportunities for AI and turn those ideas into scalable solutions with measurable business impact.

Rather than operating within a traditional central AI function, you'll be close to the end users – taking solutions from initial idea through architecture, development, production and adoption.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and deploy Generative AI and agentic AI solutions into production.
• Work directly with Front Office users to identify high-value AI opportunities.
• Translate complex commercial problems into robust technical solutions.
• Build reusable AI frameworks, components and capabilities.
• Develop solutions across workflows including research, pricing, execution, booking and post-trade.
• Ensure solutions meet appropriate security, compliance, model risk and governance standards.
• Support AI solutions once deployed into production.
• Work closely with Product, Technology and senior business stakeholders.
• Contribute to the technical direction of a growing AI engineering capability.

What We're Looking For

• Strong production software engineering background with experience building scalable, robust systems.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, Generative AI and modern AI/ML frameworks.
• Experience designing and delivering AI solutions beyond the prototype/POC stage.
• Strong ability to translate business problems into production technology.
• Experience working directly with Front Office, revenue-generating or client-facing users.
• Comfortable operating within a regulated environment.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• AWS, particularly Bedrock and serverless technologies.
• React / modern frontend development.
• APIs and microservices.
• OAuth / Okta.
• Shared AI component or capability libraries.
• Financial markets / trading technology experience.

Why Join?

This is an opportunity to join an AI function at an early stage and have genuine influence over how AI is applied across a major global financial markets business.

You'll remain hands-on technically, work directly with the people using the technology and build AI solutions where success is measured by real adoption and commercial impact - not simply experimentation.

If you're an experienced AI Engineer looking to build and ship meaningful AI products in a complex, commercially focused environment, we'd love to hear from you.