Senior Lead Engineer - Advanced Engineering

Lloyds Banking Group; Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension up to 15%

Annual bonus

Share schemes

Flexible benefits

30 days holiday

Wellbeing initiatives

Parental leave

Job summary

Lloyds Banking Group is recruiting for Principal Engineers to join the Advanced AI Engineering team within the Data & AI Unit. You will lead engineering efforts to evaluate and deploy GenAI solutions that operate in a regulated environment, delivering MVPs and scalable AI-powered capabilities.

This role blends technical leadership with hands-on coding, mentoring teams, and shaping AI strategy across business and platform disciplines, with a hybrid UK-based working pattern.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading engineering teams and delivering production‑grade technology in complex environments.
• Strong software engineering expertise across multiple languages and platforms.
• Deep applied AI/ML and GenAI experience, including RAG, tool use, guardrails and evaluation frameworks.
• Experience designing and operating AI solutions in regulated environments with focus on reliability, security and explainability.

Responsibilities

• Identify priority AI problems with business and platform teams for customer‑facing solutions.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies through rapid prototyping and experiments.
• Lead engineering delivery of MVPs enabling scalable adoption of AI solutions.
• Act as a trusted technical advisor for GenAI and Agentic AI initiatives.
• Coach and mentor engineers to adopt AI patterns and best practices.
• Influence business and technology strategy with practical AI capabilities.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Software engineering

Generative AI (GenAI)

Regulated environments

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Python

ML frameworks

RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)

AI tooling & experimentation

Job description

HOURS: Full time

WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of your time, at one of our office sites.

About this opportunity

The new Advanced AI Engineering team is seeking Principal Engineers to join. The purpose of the team is to evaluate emerging AI technologies and methods, build MVPs, and hand over proven solutions for engineering at scale. A key priority is enabling the Group to create industry-leading AI-powered products and services that drive customer engagement and service excellence!

You’ll join the Data & AI Unit within the Chief Technology Office (CTO), helping shape and support the Group’s Data and AI technology strategy. This role sits at the forefront of Agentic AI, combining technical leadership, hands‑on engineering expertise and applied GenAI knowledge to deliver innovative solutions within a regulated environment!

Day-to-day, you’ll:

• Partner with business and platform teams to identify priority problems and adoption bottlenecks, focusing on customer‑facing AI solutions that can operate effectively within a regulated environment.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies, techniques and approaches through applied research, experimentation and rapid prototyping.
• Lead the engineering and delivery of operational MVPs that address critical business challenges and create a pathway to scalable adoption.
• Act as a trusted technical advisor, guiding engineering teams, technology leaders, and business collaborators in GenAI and Agentic AI.
• Coach and mentor engineers, helping teams develop engineering capability and adopt proven AI patterns and practices.
• Influence business and technology strategy by demonstrating the art of the possible and finding opportunities to bring value through AI innovation.

About us / Why Lloyds Banking Group

We’re creating a future where technology and innovation help us serve customers better every day. Through our Data & AI capabilities, we’re exploring new ways to solve complex problems, improve customer experiences and support colleagues across the organisation.

Join us and you’ll have the opportunity to work on meaningful challenges, collaborate with talented colleagues and help shape the future of AI‑powered products and services at scale.

What you'll need

• Proven experience leading engineering teams and delivering production‑grade technology solutions in complex environments, with accountability for outcomes.
• Strong software engineering expertise with proficiency in at least two programming languages and a track record of solving complex technical problems.
• Deep applied AI/ML and Generative AI experience, including the use of patterns such as retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG), tool use, guardrails, evaluation frameworks and AI agents.
• Experience designing, building and operating AI solutions within regulated environments, managing considerations such as reliability, security, safety and explainability.
• Strong analytical thinking and judgement, with the ability to translate ambiguous challenges into clear technical direction, MVPs and scalable engineering solutions.
• Proven ability to influence, coach and mentor engineers while engaging senior stakeholders on technical direction, architecture and technology decisions.

And any experience of this would be really useful

• Experience delivering technology solutions within regulated industries, particularly financial services.
• Experience conducting or applying research within industry, academia or equivalent environments.
• Experience developing large‑scale customer‑facing technology solutions and influencing engineering standards, reference architectures or reusable patterns across large organisations.

This is a place for you...

Our ambition is to be the leading UK business for diversity, equity and inclusion, supporting our customers, colleagues and communities. We are committed to creating an environment in which everyone can thrive, learn and develop.

We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and launch a dedicated Working with Cancer initiative.

We offer reasonable workplace adjustments for colleagues with disabilities, including flexibility in office attendance, location and working patterns. As a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee interviews for a fair and proportionate number of applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role and have a disability, long‑term health or neurodivergent condition, through the Disability Confident Scheme.

We provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process to reduce or remove barriers - just let us know what you need.

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%
• An annual performance‑related bonus
• Share schemes including free shares
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
• 30 days' holiday, with bank holidays on top
• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies