Senior Automation Engineer [AQ-21737]

Aquent; Worthing; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Aquent is seeking a technical leader to drive end-to-end delivery of high-complexity automation, digital workers, and agentic AI solutions. You will innovate best practices, define architectural standards, and mentor teams to accelerate digital transformation and efficiency.

The role requires deep expertise in Power Platform, agentic AI, and secure DevOps, with responsibility for governance, runbooks, SLAs, and cross-functional collaboration.

Qualifications

• Hands-on mastery of Microsoft Power Platform and automation tooling.
• Experience with agentic AI, governance, and responsible AI controls.
• Strong ALM/DevOps with CI/CD and multi-environment deployment.
• Architecture, security, GDPR compliance, and data governance knowledge.
• Understanding of groundedness, bias mitigation, prompt-injection defense.
• Proven delivery leadership in Agile/Scrum environments.
• Degree in CS/Software Eng or equivalent experience with enterprise automation.

Responsibilities

• Lead full-lifecycle delivery for complex automations across multi-system environments, APIs, and unattended flows.
• Design and orchestrate agentic AI solutions with Responsible AI controls.
• Establish and enforce architecture and engineering standards, including CI/CD pipelines and security roles.
• Conduct peer code/architecture reviews and oversee testing, deployment, and ELS.
• Collaborate with platform engineers on readiness, capacity, and monitoring; resolve defects and perform RCA.
• Create reusable components, patterns, APIs, and starter kits; coach engineers and citizen developers.
• Act as trusted technical advisor to analysts, product owners, architects, SMEs, and suppliers.

Skills

Power Platform

Agentic AI

Azure

DevOps

Security & GDPR

Leadership

Agile/Scrum

Education

Degree in Computer Science/Software Engineering

Tools

Copilot Studio

Azure AI Foundry

Power Automate

Dataverse

APIs

ServiceNow

Job description

Lead the end-to-end technical delivery of high-complexity automation, digital worker, and agentic AI solutions.

In this pivotal role, you will innovate best practices, define architectural standards, and mentor engineering teams to drive digital transformation and operational efficiency.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership & Lifecycle Management: Lead full-lifecycle delivery (assessment, design, build, test, deployment, and continuous improvement) for complex enterprise automations across multi-system environments, custom APIs, and unattended flows.
• Agentic AI & Responsible AI Governance: Design and orchestrate agentic AI solutions embedded with strict Responsible AI controls (grounding, permissions, guardrails, human-in-the-loop escalation, content safety, and auditability).
• Architecture & Engineering Standards: Establish and enforce standards for naming conventions, source control, ALM, CI/CD pipelines, DLP policies, security roles, service accounts, and exception handling.
• Quality Assurance & Governance: Conduct peer code/architecture reviews, execute testing (functional, integration, regression, performance), and lead deployment, smoke testing, and early life support (ELS).
• Platform & Operations Support: Collaborate with platform engineers on environment readiness, capacity, licensing, and monitoring; resolve L3 escalated production defects and lead root-cause analysis.
• Reusable Assets & Knowledge Sharing: Create shared components, patterns, APIs, and starter kits; foster a culture of technical coaching, pair programming, and community-of-practice training for engineers and citizen developers.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Act as a trusted technical advisor to process analysts, product owners, architects, SMEs, and external suppliers.

Qualifications

Must-Have Qualifications

• Technical Expertise: Hands‑on mastery of Microsoft Power Platform (Power Automate Cloud/Desktop, Power Apps, Dataverse), custom connectors, APIs, and RPA tooling.
• Agentic AI & Cloud: Experience with Copilot Studio, agentic automation, Azure AI Foundry, Azure Integration Services, or AI‑enabled workflows.
• ALM & DevOps: Strong background in Application Lifecycle Management, CI/CD pipelines, managed solution packaging, git source control, and multi‑environment deployment.
• Architecture & Security: In‑depth knowledge of exception patterns, telemetry/alerting, DLP policies, RBAC, service accounts, GDPR compliance, and ISO27001 data governance.
• Responsible AI & Governance: Solid understanding of groundedness, hallucination management, bias mitigation, data leakage prevention, and prompt‑injection defense.
• Leadership & Delivery: Demonstrated experience leading technical delivery, conducting code reviews, producing solution documentation (runbooks, SLAs, handovers), and working in Agile/Scrum environments.
• Education & Experience: Degree in Computer Science/Software Engineering (or equivalent professional experience) with proven enterprise automation delivery track record.

Nice‑to‑Have Qualifications

• Certifications: Microsoft (PL-100, PL-200, PL-400) or Azure (AZ-900, AI-900, AZ-204) credentials.
• Integration & Systems: API development experience and familiarity with enterprise platforms (ServiceNow, SAP, GIS).