Principal Software Engineer AI

Hackajob Ltd; Leeds; On-site; GBP 61,000 - 101,000; Full time

Job summary

Hackajob Ltd. seeks a Principal Engineer to lead strategy and delivery of mission-critical AI platforms and applications. You will guide multiple engineering teams, shape long-term architectural roadmaps, and drive governance for responsible AI across Moody's collaboration.

Expect hands-on work with LLMs, RAG, and cloud-native AI tooling. The role emphasizes leadership, architecture, and production readiness, with a focus on delivering measurable business impact at scale within a partnering

Qualifications

• 12+ years software engineering with 5+ years leading teams and delivering large-scale, multi-team initiatives
• Experience leading multiple teams or groups including managers and staff-level engineers across a portfolio
• Deep expertise in TypeScript, Python, C#, and architecture reviews across AI systems
• Hands-on experience building AI/ML applications and productionizing AI capabilities
• Experience running AI systems in production at scale on AWS/Azure with observability and cost planning
• Cloud-native, serverless architectures and data/inference pipelines across relational/NoSQL/vector DBs
• Proven track record owning multi-year technical strategy and roadmaps for AI platforms
• Strong AI governance and responsible AI practices
• Bachelor's or Master's in CS/Engineering/AI or equivalent experience

Responsibilities

• Lead strategy, delivery, and evolution of AI platforms and intelligent applications
• Define and execute long-term technical strategies and multi-year roadmaps for AI platforms
• Grow and organize multiple engineering teams with delivery accountability
• Drive architectural decisions leveraging LLMs, RAG, orchestration, and agentic workflows
• Establish engineering excellence through reviews, testing, observability, and security
• Own budget planning and cost management for cloud infra, tooling, and vendors
• Partner with product, risk, legal, and compliance for responsible AI governance
• Mentor leaders, drive succession planning, and performance coaching
• Define and report metrics on platform adoption, reliability, and cost efficiency

Skills

Engineering leadership

AI platforms

AWS/Azure

TypeScript

Python

C#

LLM tooling

Observability

Cost planning

Security

Education

Bachelor's/Master's in CS/Engineering/AI

Tools

AWS

Azure

NoSQL

Serverless

Job description

Salary: £61,000 - 101,000 per year

Requirements:

• 12 years of software engineering experience, including 5 years leading engineering teams and delivering complex, large-scale, multi-team initiatives with measurable business impact
• Experience leading multiple teams or groups of teams, including managing engineering managers, technical leads, and staff-level engineers with accountability for delivery outcomes across a portfolio
• Strong technical depth in TypeScript, Python, C#, or similar technologies, with the ability to engage credibly in architecture and code reviews, challenge design decisions, and assess technical risk
• Deep expertise in enterprise AI applications built on large language models, including agents, retrieval augmented generation, orchestration frameworks, model optimization, and evaluation frameworks
• Hands-on experience building AI/ML applications and taking them to production or in platforming AI capabilities such as LLM or MCP gateways, agentic runtimes, auth, data retrieval, and eval tooling
• Experience running AI systems in production at scale, including observability, cost and capacity planning, regression detection, and incident response for AI-powered applications
• Experience operating production distributed systems on AWS/Azure, with a strong grasp of reliability, observability, and incident response at scale
• Deep knowledge of cloud-native technologies, serverless applications, event-driven architectures, data and inference pipelines, relational, NoSQL, and vector databases, and modern software architecture patterns
• Proven track record of owning multi-year technical strategy and architectural roadmaps, guiding teams from AI prototype through production deployment, and influencing organizational change
• Deep expertise in artificial intelligence, with a track record of implementing advanced AI solutions to drive strategic transformation and operational efficiency
• Strong experience using AI tools to lead innovation initiatives
• Demonstrated leadership in managing AI-related risks, ensuring ethical governance, and fostering a culture of responsible AI adoption across the organization
• Bachelors or masters degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience

Responsibilities:

• Lead the strategy, delivery, and evolution of mission-critical AI platforms and intelligent applications while driving engineering excellence across the Digital Content and Innovation organization
• Define and execute long-term technical strategies while owning the multi-year architecture and technology roadmap for AI platforms and applications
• Lead, grow, and organize multiple engineering teams, including engineering managers, technical leads, and staff-level engineers, with accountability for delivery outcomes across the portfolio
• Drive architectural decisions, organizational alignment, and integration of AI-powered solutions using large language models, retrieval augmented generation, orchestration frameworks, and agentic workflows
• Establish engineering excellence through architecture reviews, code reviews, automated testing, observability, security standards, operational excellence, and machine learning operations practices
• Own budget planning and cost management, including headcount, cloud infrastructure, model consumption, tooling investments, vendor relationships, and build-versus-buy decisions
• Partner with product, business, risk, legal, compliance, and audit stakeholders to maximize customer value and implement responsible AI governance practices
• Attract, develop, and retain engineering talent through mentoring, succession planning, performance coaching, and the cultivation of future engineering leaders
• Define and report on key metrics that demonstrate platform adoption, delivery performance, reliability, cost efficiency, and measurable business impact

Technologies:

• AI
• AWS
• Azure
• C#
• Cloud
• LLM
• Machine Learning
• MCP
• NoSQL
• Python
• Security
• Serverless
• TypeScript
• RAG

More:

hackajob is partnering directly with Moodys Corporation to hire for this role. Our Digital Content and Innovation team is responsible for building and deploying intelligent, AI-powered solutions that drive innovation across Moodys products and platforms. The team accelerates the development of next-generation analytical capabilities, enables smarter client experiences, and advances Moodys leadership in applied artificial intelligence. As Principal Engineer, we will define the technical vision, guide strategic investments, build high-performing teams, and help transform applied AI into scalable, production-ready capabilities that deliver measurable value responsibly and at scale.

last updated 40 week of 2026