Lead AI Engineer

Acorn Group; Liverpool; Hybrid; GBP 54,000 - 66,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Up to 35 days’ holiday

24/7 mental health support

Flexible benefits

Hybrid working options

Recognition awards

Job summary

Acorn Group is looking for a Lead AI Engineer based in Liverpool City Centre to drive AI strategy and oversee the platform infrastructure. This hybrid role involves leading engineering practices, integrating APIs, and ensuring best practices in observability and governance across the AI function.

The ideal candidate will have a strong production engineering background, experience with LLM patterns, and fluency in DevOps. Benefits include a maximum of 35 days’ holiday, 24/7 mental health support, and flexible working options.

Qualifications

• Strong production engineering track record – software, AI or ML at scale.
• Working knowledge of LLM application patterns.
• Comfortable integrating APIs cleanly.
• Conversational AI awareness including Boost.ai, ElevenLabs, etc.
• DevOps fluency across the entire stack.
• Experience with observability and governance in regulated environments.
• Track record of mentoring and shaping engineering culture.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI strategy and engineering vision.
• Own AI platform infrastructure and ensure operational health.
• Set standards for observability and governance across AI solutions.
• Integrate internal APIs with Chat and Voice tooling.
• Lead evaluations of new platforms and tools.
• Provide technical direction and mentorship to engineers.
• Expand AI capability into new business domains.

Skills

Production engineering track record

Working knowledge of LLM application patterns

API integration

Conversational AI awareness

DevOps fluency

Observability and governance knowledge

Mentoring engineers

Architecture and tooling decisions

Tools

Azure

AKS

Terraform

Helm

Azure Pipelines

Job description

Acorn Insurance is hiring a Lead AI Engineer. A senior individual contributor role responsible for the engineering practice, platform and infrastructure underpinning our AI Services function. You will help drive the AI strategy at Acorn, push our technical direction and platform decisions, and bring strong software engineering discipline to how AI gets built.

Job title: Lead AI Engineer

Salary: up to £60,000 depending on experience

Working hours: 37.5 hours per week, Monday to Friday

Location: Liverpool City Centre on a hybrid working basis

What you’ll be doing

• Help lead AI strategy at Acorn alongside the Head of AI Services: shape direction, roadmap and the engineering vision for the function.
• Own a substantial share of the AI platform infrastructure: Azure, AKS, Terraform, Helm, Azure Pipelines. Lead its evolution, reliability and operational health.
• Lead engineering practice across AI Services: code review, testing, source control hygiene, deployment patterns, observability.
• Set and uphold observability, performance and governance standards for AI solutions across the business: DPIAs, model documentation, audit trails, evaluation harnesses.
• Integrate APIs cleanly: REST and webhook patterns, OpenAPI, authentication, retry / backoff, contract testing.
• Partner with the Conversational AI workstream to integrate internal APIs with Chat and Voice tooling (Boost.ai, ElevenLabs, comparable platforms).
• Lead evaluation of new platforms, frameworks and AI tooling; drive adoption decisions for the function.
• Act as technical escalation point for AI engineers across the wider function.
• Run cross-team forums to share patterns, new tooling and engineering practice.
• Lead expansion of AI capability into new business domains as the AI estate grows.
• Provide technical direction and mentorship to engineers across teams; raise the engineering bar.
• Operate within a regulated AI governance model: DPIAs, model documentation, observability, human‑in‑the‑loop where appropriate.

This is the technical seat in the AI function with the Group AI Team. You will support by owning the platform, setting the bar for engineering practice, and shaping how AI scales at Acorn across new domains and use cases.

What we’re looking for

• Strong production engineering track record – software, AI or ML at scale, in environments where reliability matters. Real software development practice, not just AI tinkering.
• Working knowledge of LLM application patterns: RAG, structured extraction, evals, prompt and context engineering, agentic workflows.
• Comfort integrating APIs cleanly – REST / webhook, OpenAPI, authentication patterns, retry / backoff, contract testing. You understand how production integrations actually fail.
• Conversational AI awareness – familiarity with Boost.ai, ElevenLabs or comparable voice / chat platforms, and how to wire them up to internal systems sensibly.
• DevOps fluency: Azure (essential), AKS, Helm, Terraform, Azure Pipelines strongly preferred. Comfortable across the whole stack rather than purely application‑layer.
• Track record of putting observability, governance and audit story in place at scale.
• Awareness of the constraints of regulated environments: data residency, auditability, ZDR, model risk – design with them in mind from the start.
• Track record of mentoring engineers across teams and shaping engineering culture.
• Comfortable making and defending architecture / tooling calls; comfortable being challenged.
• Senior enough to operate as a credible technical co‑owner of the AI platform alongside the Head of AI Services.

Benefits

• A maximum of 35 days’ holiday (depending on role and tenure) including bank holidays, with additional buy/sell options
• 24/7 mental health support & free counselling available
• Grow with us: Through career fairs, leadership programmes, and learning on the go!
• Flexible benefits, including early access to salary via our internal platform
• Hybrid working options to support work‑life balance and individual needs
• Recognition awards, social events & more