Lead Systems Engineer – AI & Cloud Platform Innovator

Cloud Direct; Bath; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fitness Cash Contribution

Pension Contribution

Employee Assistance Programme

Enhanced Maternity & Paternity Leave

Life Assurance, Critical Illness, and 

Income Protection

Job summary

Cloud Direct seeks a Systems Engineering Lead to shape technical solutions from concept to production, focusing on AI, automation and emerging technologies. You will lead a small team of software engineers, maintain high engineering standards, and collaborate with the Principal Architect and other technical leaders to translate direction into delivery.

The role combines hands-on software engineering, leadership and coaching, driving secure and scalable software with measurable business value.

Qualifications

• 5+ years commercial software engineering experience.
• 3+ years experience leading engineering teams or senior technical initiatives.
• Proven experience delivering complex business-critical software solutions.
• Strong experience with Microsoft Azure platforms and cloud-native development.
• Experience delivering AI-enabled applications, automation, or agent-based systems.
• Experience using Azure DevOps, Git and CI/CD practices.
• Strong understanding of security and secure-by-design principles.
• Experience mentoring engineers and developing junior talent.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Must be able to work from the Bath office at least two days per week.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and direction for the Systems Engineering team.
• Lead solution design and key engineering decisions in partnership with the Principal Architect.
• Establish and maintain engineering standards, quality expectations and development practices.
• Lead the delivery of systems, platforms, integrations and AI-enabled solutions.
• Remain hands-on in the design, development and deployment of software where required.
• Shape and prioritise technical work with stakeholders and product owners.
• Identify opportunities to apply AI and automation to create business value.
• Translate emerging tech into production-ready solutions, prototypes and IP.
• Line manage, mentor and develop software engineers across experience levels.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Software engineering

Mentoring

Communication

Tools

Azure

Azure DevOps

Git

CI/CD

Docker

Cosmos DB

SQL Server

React

Python

REST APIs

Job description

Cloud Direct seeks a Systems Engineering Lead to shape technical solutions from concept to production, focusing on AI, automation and emerging technologies. You will lead a small team of software engineers, maintain high engineering standards, and collaborate with the Principal Architect and other technical leaders to translate direction into delivery.

The role combines hands-on software engineering, leadership and coaching, driving secure and scalable software with measurable business value.