Staff Engineer - AI

Compare The Market; Peterborough; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Compare the Market is seeking a Staff Engineer – AI to lead the technical direction of AI engineering in London or Peterborough. You will own the roadmap for AI-powered products, drive end-to-end delivery, and set the standard for production-grade AI systems with strong emphasis on governance, security and performance.

You will work across teams to shape model and vendor choices, balance quality, latency and cost, and ensure safe, reliable AI deployments that meet regulatory expectations.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building production LLM applications.
• Strong depth in RAG, vector search, tool calling and agentic AI systems.
• Ability to design evaluation frameworks including offline/online performance metrics.
• Experience with production AI realities: latency, observability, reliability.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction for AI engineering and roadmap for AI-powered products.
• Lead end-to-end AI delivery from concept to production with architectural decisions.
• Build production-grade AI systems with robust evaluation, monitoring and governance.

Skills

RAG

Vector search

LLM apps

Tool calling

Agentic AI

Context management

Architectural reviews

Production AI

Job description

Curious about what’s next?

So are we. Join Compare the Market and help to make financial decision making a breeze for millions.

Job Description

Staff Engineer – AI

Function: Tech

Location: London or Peterborough

Curious about what’s next?

So are we. Join Compare the Market and help to make financial decision making a breeze for millions.

At Compare the Market, we’re a purpose-driven business powered by tech and AI. We’re building high-performing, results-driven teams with the skills, mindset, and ambition to deliver outcomes at pace. Every role here plays a part in driving our mission forward, and we create an environment where you can bring your authentic self, grow a truly characterful career, and see the direct impact of your work on the lives of our customers.

We’ve carved a meerkat-shaped niche and we’re looking for ambitious, curious thinkers who thrive in a fast-moving, high-impact environment. If you love accountability, embrace challenge, and want to make a real difference, you’ll fit right in.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Set the technical direction for AI engineering. Evolving the technical vision, architecture and roadmap for our AI powered products and capabilities. Lead by example through hands‑on engineering, establishing best practices and guiding teams towards scalable, reliable and maintainable solutions.
• Lead complex AI delivery from concept to production. Take end‑to‑end accountability for significant technical and architectural decisions, navigating trade‑offs across capability, quality, speed, cost, latency, risk and scalability. Act as the go‑to technical authority for complex AI challenges, unblocking teams through architectural guidance, rapid prototyping and hands‑on intervention where needed.
• Build production grade AI systems: Drive the design, development and deployment of LLM‑powered applications, including retrieval augmented generation (RAG), vector search, tool calling, agentic workflows and context management. Establish robust approaches to evaluation, observability, tracing, monitoring, fallback mechanisms, rate limiting and graceful degradation to ensure systems perform reliably in production, including when dealing with non deterministic behaviour.
• Champion responsible, secure and reliable AI. Embed security, safety and governance throughout the AI development lifecycle. Establish appropriate controls for prompt injection, personally identifiable information (PII), output guardrails, human‑in‑the‑loop oversight and auditability. Partner with InfoSec, Data Privacy, Legal and AI Governance teams to meet regulatory requirements, protect customer data and deliver trustworthy AI experiences.
• Influence engineering strategy across teams. You’ll work closely with engineering managers, product leaders and other technical stakeholders to shape AI development and deployment strategies. Lead cross‑team architectural reviews and technical decision‑making, guide model and vendor selection, and communicate the trade‑offs involved in capability, quality, latency, cost and data residency. Influence through technical credibility, collaboration and measurable outcomes rather than formal management authority

What We’re Looking For

We’re looking for a Staff level Software Engineer with exceptional software engineering fundamentals and a proven track record of taking complex AI‑powered products from experimentation to production at scale.

You’ll have hands on experience building production LLM applications, with strong technical depth in areas such as RAG, vector search, tool calling, agentic AI systems and context management. You’ll understand how to design and implement robust evaluation frameworks, including offline evaluations, LLM as a judge approaches and online performance metrics, enabling teams to measure and continuously improve the quality and reliability of AI outputs.

You’ll be comfortable navigating the practical realities of production AI, making informed decisions across model capability, accuracy, grounding, latency, cost, observability and reliability. You’ll understand AI safety and responsible AI risks and know how to translate these risks into effective engineering controls and production safeguards.

Beyond your technical expertise, you’ll demonstrate the judgement and influence expected of a Staff Engineer. You can establish technical direction across teams, challenge existing approaches constructively, communicate complex architectural trade‑offs and risks to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders, and help other engineers make better decisions.

You’ll thrive in an environment where success is measured by the quality of your technical decisions, the impact of your work and the engineering capabilities you help build. Experience working in regulated environments is desirable, while a formal research background is not required.

Why Compare the Market?

We’re a business built for pace and performance. Here, you’ll be encouraged to think differently, act boldly, and deliver brilliantly in a culture that values results and rewards progress.

We believe diverse teams make better decisions, and we’re committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone feels empowered to grow, contribute, and thrive.

If you’re ready to stretch yourself, raise the bar, and grow with a team that’s serious about performance, innovation, and purpose, we’d love to hear from you.