Principal AI Platform Engineer

UBDS Digital; Greater London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical cover

Discretionary bonus

25 days holiday plus additional days

Electric Vehicle leasing

Contributed Pension Scheme

Death in service cover

Job summary

UBDS Digital in Greater London is seeking a Principal AI Platform Engineer to lead the design and implementation of AI architectures across complex transformation programmes. This hands-on role requires expertise in AI platform delivery and the ability to mentor engineers.

The ideal candidate will have a strong engineering background, experience with AI operational delivery, and proficiency in tools like Amazon SageMaker and Azure AI. The position offers comprehensive benefits including private medical cover and a generous holiday package.

Qualifications

• Experience delivering secure AI platforms and machine learning solutions.
• Experience acting as a senior technical lead or principal engineer.
• Strong mentoring and coaching capability.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and implementation of AI architectures.
• Help clients move AI solutions into secure production.
• Define platform standards covering governance and operational support.
• Mentor and upskill engineers moving into AI engineering delivery.

Skills

Strong hands-on engineering background

Deep understanding of modern AI architecture patterns

Strong Python engineering capability

Experience with MLOps/Evals

Experience integrating AI capabilities

Senior technical lead experience

Mentoring and coaching capability

Tools

Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker

Azure AI Foundry or Azure OpenAI

Databricks

Vector databases and RAG architectures

Job description

Principal AI Platform Engineer

UBDS Group delivers modern cloud, data and AI solutions across public and private sector organisations. We design and build scalable, secure and production‑ready platforms that solve real‑world problems and deliver measurable outcomes.

Role

We’re looking for a Principal AI Platform Engineer who combines deep AI architecture expertise with strong engineering capability and technical leadership. This is a senior hands‑on role for someone who can shape AI platforms and production AI solutions, guide delivery teams and help expand AI engineering as a core capability within UBDS.

As a Principal AI Platform Engineer at UBDS, you will lead the design and implementation of AI architectures across complex transformation programmes.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the design and implementation of AI architectures
• Help clients move AI solutions from experimentation into secure production delivery for large‑scale user bases
• Define platform standards covering governance, observability, security, orchestration and operational support
• Support technical discovery, bids and client architecture discussions
• Work closely with delivery, account and capability teams to shape AI opportunities
• Mentor and upskill engineers moving into AI engineering delivery
• Build reusable engineering patterns, accelerators and reference architectures
• Support internal AI enablement and automation initiatives across UBDS

Essential Experience / What We’re Looking For

• Strong hands‑on engineering background with experience delivering secure AI platforms, AI‑enabled applications or machine learning solutions into production environments
• Deep understanding of modern AI architecture patterns and real‑world operational delivery, including MLOps/Evals
• Strong Python engineering capability and experience working across cloud‑native engineering environments
• Experience integrating AI capabilities into wider enterprise, cloud and data ecosystems
• Experience acting as a senior technical lead, principal engineer or design authority
• Comfortable working directly with senior client stakeholders
• Strong mentoring and coaching capability
• Experience with some of the following technologies or ecosystems:
  • Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker
  • Claude / Anthropic
  • Azure AI Foundry or Azure OpenAI
  • Databricks
  • Vector databases and RAG architectures
  • Agentic AI orchestration frameworks and MCP servers
  • Model and data lifecycle management

Desirable Experience

• Experience working within public sector or regulated environments
• Experience with secure government delivery environments
• Experience contributing to bids, pre‑sales or technical strategyKnowledge of responsible AI and AI governance frameworks
• Experience scaling engineering capability or building new technical practices

Benefits

• Training – all team members are offered a number of options in terms of personal development, whether it is technical led, business acumen or methodologies. We want you to grow with us and to help us achieve more
• Private medical cover for you and your spouse/partner, offered via Vitality
• Discretionary bonus based on a blend of personal and company performance
• Holiday – you will receive 25 days holiday, plus 1 day for birthday and 1 day for your work anniversary in addition to UK bank holidays
• Electric Vehicle leasing with salary sacrifice
• Contributed Pension Scheme
• Death in service cover

Equal Opportunities

We are an equal opportunities employer and do not discriminate on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability or age.