Senior Engineer: AI‑Enabled Systems Lead (Hybrid)

Hastings Direct; Bexhill-on-Sea; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible hybrid working

Annual performance bonus

Life assurance & pension contributions

Job summary

Hastings Direct is seeking a Senior Engineer to lead software initiatives in a hybrid role requiring weekly on‑site attendance at Bexhill or Leicester offices and participation in quarterly events. The role supports our CIO‑led tech strategy and AI‑enabled projects across multiple services and platforms.

We value practical experience delivering enterprise applications, strong engineering fundamentals, and a passion for continuous learning.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading enterprise‑level customer and employee‑facing applications.
• Experience delivering end‑to‑end solutions across front‑end, services, and integration layers.
• Strong fundamentals in object‑oriented design, design patterns, problem solving, reviews, unit testing, and TDD.
• Proficiency with one or more modern programming languages and the ability to learn new tech quickly.
• Experience designing, integrating, or supporting AI‑enabled solutions with testing, governance, and assurance.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and manage stakeholder expectations.
• Design, build, modify, and support complex software systems per engineering standards.
• Deliver end‑to‑end solutions across multiple services, platforms, and integrations, including AI components.
• Estimate engineering tasks, mentor peers, and support professional development.
• Debug, test, and optimise code for performance, quality and reliability.
• Utilise AI tools to accelerate development, testing, maintenance and documentation while promoting responsible AI practices.
• Contribute to AI‑enabled solutions with governance, security, privacy, and cost considerations.

Skills

Technical leadership

Software engineering fundamentals

APIs & integration patterns

AI-enabled solutions

CI/CD / DevOps

RESTful / JWT / JSON / XML

Mentoring peers

Job description

Hastings Direct is seeking a Senior Engineer to lead software initiatives in a hybrid role requiring weekly on‑site attendance at Bexhill or Leicester offices and participation in quarterly events. The role supports our CIO‑led tech strategy and AI‑enabled projects across multiple services and platforms.

We value practical experience delivering enterprise applications, strong engineering fundamentals, and a passion for continuous learning.