Staff AI Engineer

Aviva; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 125,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Job summary

Aviva is seeking an experienced Staff AI Engineer to design, build and operate production-grade AI solutions delivering measurable business value. You will work hands-on across the AI stack, turning emerging capabilities into reliable, scalable enterprise-grade systems.

You’ll blend strong software engineering with architectural judgment to ensure robust, maintainable AI in a regulated environment, while mentoring peers and contributing reusable patterns for the team.

Qualifications

• We require proven hands-on experience building production-grade AI systems.
• Strong software engineering skills, especially Python, for production code.
• Experience with LLM-powered applications and AI agents.
• Familiarity with cloud-based AI environments and APIs.
• Knowledge of responsible AI, safety, bias and data protection.

Skills

LLM-powered apps

Python

Agent orchestration

Context engineering

Responsible AI

Education

Degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Job description

We are looking for an experienced Staff AI Engineer to design, build and operate production-grade AI solutions that deliver measurable business value across Aviva.

This is a hands-on senior individual contributor role, working across the AI stack to turn emerging AI capabilities into reliable, scalable and responsible solutions. You’ll work with technologies including LLMs, AI agents, context engineering and orchestration, taking solutions from initial design through to production and ongoing improvement.

You’ll combine strong software engineering skills with sound technical judgement, making architectural and engineering decisions that ensure AI systems are robust, maintainable, cost-effective and fit for use within a regulated environment.

You’ll also contribute to the wider AI engineering community by helping establish reusable patterns, tooling and documentation, while supporting less experienced engineers through technical guidance, peer review and knowledge sharing.

This is a great opportunity for an engineer who enjoys being close to the technology and wants to have a meaningful impact on how AI is built and deployed at enterprise scale.

Skills and experience we're looking for

• Strong commercial experience as a Staff AI Engineer, Senior AI Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Software Engineer or equivalent.
• Proven experience designing, building and deploying production-grade AI systems.
• Strong hands-on experience with LLM-powered applications and AI agents.
• Excellent software engineering skills, particularly Python, with experience developing production-quality code.
• Experience working with cloud-based AI environments, APIs, compute and platform services.
• Practical experience with context engineering, prompt/context pipelines, agent orchestration and memory strategies.
• Understanding of modern AI architecture patterns and how to build scalable, reusable AI systems.
• Experience designing and implementing AI evaluation and testing frameworks, including measures for quality, performance, safety and production readiness.
• Understanding of responsible AI, including considerations around safety, fairness, bias, data protection and appropriate controls.
• Experience making architectural and engineering decisions around framework selection, orchestration approaches, tooling and reusable components.
• Ability to make effective build-versus-reuse decisions and contribute to shared engineering patterns and capabilities.
• Experience monitoring and supporting AI systems in production, including contributing to incident response, troubleshooting and continuous improvement.
• Strong awareness of technical, data and model risks, with the ability to identify and elevate material issues appropriately.
• Experience balancing performance, scalability, reliability and cost when designing and operating AI solutions.
• Strong collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with engineers, architects, product teams and business stakeholders.
• Comfortable working independently and taking ownership of technical outcomes within a fast-moving environment.
• Experience participating in architecture reviews, engineering forums or communities of practice.
• A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• Relevant AI or cloud certifications would be advantageous.
• Demonstrable experience successfully delivering AI systems into production.
• Working knowledge of FCA Consumer Duty and GDPR as they relate to AI systems would be advantageous.

We’re inclusive and welcome everyone – we want applications from all backgrounds and experiences. Excited but not sure you tick every box? Even if you don’t, we would still encourage you to apply. We also consider all forms of flexible working, including part-time and job shares. We flex locations, hours and working patterns to suit our customers, business, and you. Most of our people are smart working - spending at least 50% of their time in our offices every week - combining the benefits of flexibility, with time together with colleagues.