Lead AI Engineer: Production ML & MLOps

Digital Futures; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension contributions

Wellbeing budget

Employee benefits platform

Hybrid working model

Job summary

Digital Futures is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to lead the design, build, and operation of production‑grade AI solutions for clients. You will provide technical leadership to AI and data engineers, setting standards for AI delivery across cloud and data platforms.

The role requires hands‑on experience with AI/ML in production, strong software engineering skills, and the ability to mentor teams while balancing security and cost considerations. Hybrid working with office days is offered.

Qualifications

• Production AI/ML systems experience in consulting, product or enterprise.
• Strong software engineering background with Python/Java and CI/CD practices.
• Hands-on with major cloud/data platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure, Databricks, Snowflake).
• Familiarity with modern AI tooling (LLM frameworks, vector databases, MLOps tooling).
• Proven track record leading technical teams and mentoring engineers.
• Understanding of security, data privacy and responsible AI in production.

Responsibilities

• Lead end‑to‑end engineering of AI products and platforms from discovery to production and optimization.
• Define and own engineering standards, patterns and best practices for AI services, data pipelines and MLOps.
• Provide hands‑on technical direction to AI/ML/Data Engineers, including reviews and design.
• Collaborate with architects, product owners and client stakeholders to translate business requirements into scalable designs.
• Ensure solutions meet performance, reliability, observability, security and cost‑effectiveness.
• Champion continuous improvement of engineering practices and tooling.

Skills

AI production systems

Python/Java

Cloud platforms

MLOps/Git CI/CD

Team leadership

Security/DPA/Responsible AI

Tools

Databricks

Snowflake

LLM frameworks

Vector databases

Job description

Digital Futures is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to lead the design, build, and operation of production‑grade AI solutions for clients. You will provide technical leadership to AI and data engineers, setting standards for AI delivery across cloud and data platforms.

The role requires hands‑on experience with AI/ML in production, strong software engineering skills, and the ability to mentor teams while balancing security and cost considerations. Hybrid working with office days is offered.