Product Engineer, Applied AI

White & Case LLP; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical insurance

Pension plan with matched employercon

Yearly wellbeing fund

Income protection

Life insurance

Critical Illness insurance

Private GP services

Travel insurance

Dental coverage

Cycle to work

Holiday purchase

Job summary

White & Case LLP in London, United Kingdom, is seeking an experienced software engineer to take prototypes through production, build Python services and APIs, and develop MCP integrations with secure authentication. The role involves cloud deployments, SDLC compliance, and creating robust, scalable solutions.

You will report to the Associate Director, Applied AI, as part of the Innovation & AI team, collaborating with security, infrastructure and product specialists to resolve complex challenges.

Qualifications

• Professional software engineering experience that includes taking incomplete, experimental or early-stage applications into production and maintaining them afterwards.
• Experience working in an autonomous, fast-moving environment where you contributed across development, integration, deployment and live operation.
• Strong Python skills and experience with FastAPI or comparable Python frameworks.
• Strong SQL and relational database skills, plus experience designing and integrating APIs.
• Practical understanding of authentication and authorisation, including OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect.
• Experience with automated testing, Git, CI/CD, cloud deployment and production troubleshooting.
• Clear communication, pragmatic product and engineering judgement, and the ability to bring structure to unfamiliar or incomplete systems. You should be comfortable making progress with limited documentation, surfacing risks early and working with security, infrastructure and product specialists to resolve them.

Responsibilities

• Assess prototypes for production readiness, including architecture, code quality, dependencies, data handling, security, scalability, supportability and user value.
• Recommend whether each prototype should be hardened, refactored, rebuilt or stopped, and agree a practical route to production.
• Build Python services, relational data models, APIs and background processing; add lightweight frontend interfaces where useful.
• Develop MCP integrations through the Firm’s gateway, handling authentication, permissions and token exchange with downstream applications.
• Work with Technology on approved cloud deployments and connections to on-premises systems, resolving infrastructure and integration dependencies.
• Follow the Firm’s central SDLC and security policies; implement testing, access controls, audit logging and secure secrets handling.
• Take production applications through deployment, controlled release and early live use, then establish clear ownership, support procedures, service expectations and handover arrangements with the relevant Technology teams.
• Define and run evaluations for AI-enabled behaviour, including representative test cases, quality thresholds, regression testing and human review where appropriate. Monitor failures, latency, usage and consumption costs in production, and use the results to improve applications and contribute reusable engineering patterns as the team grows.

Skills

Python

FastAPI

SQL

APIs

Authentication/Authorization

CI/CD

Testing

Communication & Judgement

Tools

Git

Azure

API gateways

OAuth/OpenID Connect

Job description

Duties and Accountabilities

• Assess prototypes for production readiness, including architecture, code quality, dependencies, data handling, security, scalability, supportability and user value. Recommend whether each prototype should be hardened, refactored, rebuilt or stopped, and agree a practical route to production.

• Build Python services, relational data models, APIs and background processing; add lightweight frontend interfaces where useful.

• Develop MCP integrations through the Firm’s gateway, handling authentication, permissions and token exchange with downstream applications.

• Work with Technology on approved cloud deployments and connections to on-premises systems, resolving infrastructure and integration dependencies.

• Follow the Firm’s central SDLC and security policies; implement testing, access controls, audit logging and secure secrets handling.

• Take production applications through deployment, controlled release and early live use, then establish clear ownership, support procedures, service expectations and handover arrangements with the relevant Technology teams.

• Define and run evaluations for AI-enabled behaviour, including representative test cases, quality thresholds, regression testing and human review where appropriate. Monitor failures, latency, usage and consumption costs in production, and use the results to improve applications and contribute reusable engineering patterns as the team grows.

Required Skills

• Professional software engineering experience that includes taking incomplete, experimental or early-stage applications into production and maintaining them afterwards.

• Experience working in an autonomous, fast-moving environment where you contributed across development, integration, deployment and live operation.

• Strong Python skills and experience with FastAPI or comparable Python frameworks.

• Strong SQL and relational database skills, plus experience designing and integrating APIs.

• Practical understanding of authentication and authorisation, including OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect.

• Experience with automated testing, Git, CI/CD, cloud deployment and production troubleshooting.

• Clear communication, pragmatic product and engineering judgement, and the ability to bring structure to unfamiliar or incomplete systems. You should be comfortable making progress with limited documentation, surfacing risks early and working with security, infrastructure and product specialists to resolve them.

Preferred Experience

Experience with FastMCP, Azure, Entra ID, API gateways, delegated access or token exchange would be valuable. Other useful experience includes cloud-to-on-premises integration, LLM applications and straightforward JavaScript/TypeScript interfaces. You do not need experience with every technology listed or a legal background.

Location and Reporting

This role is based in London, United Kingdom.

You will report to the Associate Director, Applied AI. The Applied AI team forms part of the wider Innovation & AI team.

Firm Benefits

We offer a flexible range of benefits, services and programmes designed to help support your lifestyle requirements. Some of the benefits currently available include:

• Private medical insurance

• Pension plan with matched employer contribution up to 7.5%

• Yearly wellbeing fund

• Income protection

• Life insurance

• Critical Illness insurance

• Private GP services

• Travel insurance

• Dental coverage

• Cycle to work

• Holiday purchase (available during annual enrolment)

This role reports to

Director, Innovation and AI

Equal Opportunities

White & Case is committed to creating a fair workplace. It is our Firm’s policy to recruit, employ, train, compensate, and promote without regard to race, religion, creed, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, military or veteran status, disability, genetic information, or any other category protected by applicable law.

If you require assistance and/or adjustment to participate in our application and/or interview process, please email us. We will be happy to work with you.

The Firm may modify and amend any job description at any time in its sole discretion. Nothing herein creates a contract of employment or otherwise modifies the at-will nature of employment.

The above is only a general description of the essential duties associated with this position and does not represent an exhaustive or comprehensive list of all duties.