Lead Engineer, Back End, Agentic intelligence

groupm-emea; London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

A global media company in London is seeking a skilled Back-End Engineer to lead the development of Python microservices. You will contribute to innovative AI-enabled products and guide senior developers. Candidates should have robust Python expertise and experience with cloud platforms. This position supports a hybrid work model and offers competitive benefits such as medical insurance and paid time off.

Benefits

Competitive medical insurance

Group retirement plans

Paid time off

Partner discounts

Mental health awareness days

Qualifications

• Solid experience in back-end development and API design.
• Experience with cloud platforms, serverless architectures, and data pipelines.
• Familiarity with AI/LLM tooling and agentic workflows.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of Python microservices and AI-enabled capabilities.
• Collaborate with product leaders on service and product roadmaps.
• Design and implement agentic workflows and supporting infrastructure.

Skills

Python 3 proficiency

API design

Microservices architecture

Cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, Azure)

REST APIs

Containerization with Docker/Kubernetes

Understanding of AI/LLM tooling

Tools

Django

FastAPI

Kafka

RabbitMQ

Job description

Overview

Description

About WPP Media

WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients and communities. For more information, visit wpp.com.

WPP Media is WPP's global media collective. In a world where media is everywhere and in everything, we bring the best platform, people, and partners together to create limitless opportunities for growth. For more information, visit wppmedia.com

About Choreograph: A Leading WPP Media Brand

Choreograph is WPP's global data products and technology company. We\'re on a mission to transform marketing by building the fastest, most connected data platform that bridges marketing strategy to scaled activation.

We work with agencies and clients to transform the value of data by bringing together technology, data and analytics capabilities. We deliver this through the Open Media Studio, an AI-enabled media and data platform for the next era of advertising.

We\'re endlessly curious. Our team of thinkers, builders, creators and problem solvers are over 1,000 strong, across 20 markets around the world.

Who we are looking for

Choreograph is seeking an experienced and forward-thinking Back-End Engineer to lead the development of our ecosystem of (primarily) Python microservices. You\'ll build leading edge capabilities, collaborating with other teams to develop services that contribute to a range of innovative products, with a particular focus on integrating and optimising AI and agentic intelligence capabilities. Your deep understanding of microservices architectures will enable you to operate autonomously, tackling complex problems described in high-level functional terms. You\'ll be acutely aware of the risks to API integrity and champion a strong separation of concerns. As a leader, you\'ll guide a team of senior developers, defining processes, shaping architecture, and collaborating on implementation. You\'ll also contribute to the higher-level architecture of interconnected systems. We\'re particularly interested in candidates with a passion for Generative AI, LLMs, and agentic workflows, and a desire to build the next generation of intelligent applications.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of our ecosystem of Python microservices and AI-enabled capabilities.
• Guide a team of senior developers; define processes and contribute to system architecture.
• Collaborate with Product leaders to develop and execute roadmaps for services and products, including AI and agentic strategies.
• Design and deploy back-end services communicating over APIs with other services, including those leveraging language models.
• Write clean, well-designed, and reusable code; implement testing frameworks in collaboration with Developers in Test.
• Assess trade-offs of technical decisions; participate in workshops to define functional and non-functional requirements, including AI-related needs.
• Ensure separation of concerns and API contracts; prevent leakage of implementation details across boundaries.
• Design and implement agentic workflows and supporting infrastructure, including workflow design, tool calling and model evaluation pipelines; collaborate with data scientists and product teams to support agentic capabilities.
• Adhere to best practices in software development; experience with microservices and multiple interfaces.
• Understand REST, OpenAPI/Swagger, GraphQL, and the differences between REST and RPCs; apply TDD/BDD and appropriate testing strategies.
• Work with back-end frameworks (e.g., Django, FastAPI) and cloud technologies (GCP, AWS, Azure); experience with serverless, messaging queues and data pipelines.
• Familiarity with trunk-based development in Git and collaboration across cross-functional teams.
• Experience with language models and agentic workflows (e.g., Langchain, AutoGPT) and model evaluation techniques.

Qualifications

• Strong Python 3 proficiency; solid experience in back-end development and API design.
• Experience with REST APIs, OpenAPI/Swagger, GraphQL; understanding of web technologies and API contracts.
• Experience with cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, Azure), serverless architectures, and data pipelines (Kafka, Beam, Kinesis, etc.).
• Experience with message queues (SQS, Pub/Sub, RabbitMQ) and containerization with Docker/Kubernetes.
• Experience with back-end web frameworks (Django, FastAPI) and modern CI/CD practices.
• Familiarity with AI/LLM tooling and agentic workflows; knowledge of model evaluation metrics.
• Experience within the advertising/media agency space is a plus.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media includes investing in our employees to help them do their best work, and we\'re committed to employee growth as we are to responsible media investment. Benefits include competitive medical, group retirement plans, vision and dental insurance, significant paid time off, partner discounts, and mental health awareness days.

Equality and Work Arrangement

WPP Media is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect where everyone belongs and has the same opportunities to progress.

We support a hybrid approach with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

Please note this is a UK-based role and requires the right to work in this location.

Please read our Privacy Notice for more information on how we process the information you provide. While we appreciate all applications, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

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