Senior AI Practitioner

Ericsson GmbH; Athlone; Hybrid; EUR 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid on-site at Athlone (3 days/week

Health insurance

Job summary

Ericsson Ireland Athlone is seeking a Senior AI Practitioner to define and steer the AI strategy for telecommunications network management. You will collaborate with the AI Architect to shape the target AI architecture and a phased roadmap toward autonomous network operations, aligned with TM Forum autonomy levels.

You will engage systems analysts and development teams to ensure AI design, implementation and operations are scalable and coherent with strategic direction.

Qualifications

• Strong background in AI/ML for network automation and autonomy.
• Experience designing AI control loops, decision hierarchies and explainability.
• Background in AI governance, risk, observability, guardrails and rollback mechanisms.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the AI strategy for network management and autonomy.
• Co-own target AI architecture with AI Architect across RAN, Transport, Core and Cloud domains.
• Lead architecture reviews and ensure coherence with target AI architecture and openness standards.

Skills

AI/ML for network automation

Architectural leadership

Open standards & TMF APIs

Stakeholder management

Tools

Cloud-native architectures

OSS & orchestration

Open RAN environments

Job description

Grow with us

The Senior AI Practitioner is responsible for defining and steering the AI strategy for telecommunications network management, working closely with the AI Architect to establish the target AI implementation architecture and a phased roadmap toward achieving full autonomy in network operations, aligned with TM Forum Autonomous Network Level 4 and Level 5.

A core aspect of the role is active engagement with systems analysts and development teams across the organization, ensuring that AI-related design, implementation, and operational practices are consistent, scalable, and aligned with the agreed strategic and architectural direction.

This is a senior strategic and technical leadership role, shaping how AI is applied coherently across products, platforms, and domains rather than delivering isolated solutions.

What you will do

AI Strategy & Vision

• Work with the architecture team to define and maintain the AI strategy for network management and autonomy, aligned with business, operational, and transformation objectives
• Establish common AI capability principles and patterns applicable across RAN, Transport, Core, and Cloud management domains.

Target AI Architecture Definition

• Co-own the target AI implementation architecture with the AI Architect, ensuring:
  • Consistent AI control-loop patterns and decision hierarchies
  • Clear separation of concerns between data, intelligence, decisioning, and execution layers
  • Alignment with OSS, orchestration, and assurance architectures
• Promote architectural alignment with:
  • Cloud-native and microservices principles
  • Open standards and interfaces (TMF Open APIs, 3GPP, ETSI) as well as de facto open source implementations
  • Multi-vendor and disaggregated environments, including Open RAN

Roadmap & Transformation Planning

• Develop a multi-year roadmap from current-state automation to intent-driven, self-managing networks
• Decompose strategic objectives into actionable, incremental delivery milestones.
• Balance near-term operational benefits with long‑term architectural sustainability.

Development Team Engagement & Alignment

• Act as a primary AI strategy and architecture liaison between product management, central architecture functions across Ericsson and multiple distributed development teams
• Drive best practices and consistency across teams, including:
  • Common AI design patterns and reference architectures
  • Shared approaches to closed‑loop control, explainability, and confidence scoring
  • Reusable AI components, services, and data abstractions
• Provide architectural guidance and design review to ensure:
  • Solutions align with the target AI architecture and autonomy roadmap
  • Duplication and fragmentation are avoided
  • AI capabilities evolve coherently across the organization
• Influence ways of working without direct line authority, using technical credibility and collaboration.

Autonomous Network Use Case Enablement

• Support and shape key AI‑driven network management use cases, such as:
  • Closed‑loop fault management and self‑healing
  • Predictive performance and capacity optimisation
  • Energy efficiency and sustainability automation
  • Experience‑ and SLA‑driven assurance
• Ensure use cases are designed for safe, scalable autonomy at L4/L5, including:
  • Clear control boundaries (human‑on‑the‑loop vs autonomous)
  • Operational trust, observability, guardrails and rollback mechanisms

Governance, Trust & Operational Readiness

• Define and align principles for:
  • AI governance in autonomous decision‑making
  • Explainability, auditability, and risk management
  • Progressive reduction of manual intervention
• Support organisational readiness for operating and trusting autonomous systems at scale.

The Skills You will Bring

• AI/ML & control‑loop engineering
  • Strong background in AI/ML for network automation (closed‑loop control, self‑healing, predictive optimisation, SLA‑driven assurance).
  • Experience designing AI control loops, decision hierarchies, confidence scoring and explainability.
  • Knowledge of AI governance, risk, observability, guardrails and rollback mechanisms.
• Architecture & technical leadership
  • Proven experience defining target architectures: clear separation of data, intelligence, decision and execution layers.
  • Strong grounding in cloud‑native, microservices architectures, APIs and distributed systems.
  • Familiarity with open standards and interfaces (e.g. TMF Open APIs, 3GPP, ETSI) and multi‑vendor / Open RAN environments.
• Strategy, roadmapping & transformation
  • Track record of building multi‑year roadmaps from current automation to intent‑driven, self‑managing networks.
  • Ability to decompose strategy into incremental, deliverable milestones, balancing quick wins and long‑term architecture.
• Cross‑team influence and collaboration
  • Experience acting as a bridge between product management, central architecture and multiple dev teams.
  • Ability to standardise patterns and best practices (reference architectures, reusable components, shared data abstractions).
  • Strong stakeholder management and influencing without line authority, using technical credibility and collaboration.
• Governance, trust & operational readiness
  • Experience defining AI governance principles (explainability, auditability, risk management).
  • Background in operationalising AI at scale: readiness of organisations, processes and tools to trust autonomous decisions.
  • Senior‑level experience in AI/ML + telecom/networking, ideally in product/platform or architecture roles rather than isolated PoCs.
  • Excellent communication skills to align diverse stakeholders around a coherent AI strategy and architecture.
• Telecom network & domain expertise
  • Deep understanding of telecom network management across RAN, Transport, Core and Cloud domains.
  • Experience with OSS, orchestration and assurance architectures.
  • Familiarity with TM Forum Autonomous Networks (L4/L5) and related autonomy concepts.

What we offer

• This is a hybrid position (3 days per week on site) based at our Ireland Athlone Office. More information about Ericsson Athlone: VIDEO: Working at Ericsson Athlone
• A healthy work‑life balance (flexible hours, maternity/paternity and parental leave).
• 25 days annual leave + plus 2 company days, family‑friendly work environment!
• Multifaceted sports and social club which hosts many sporting (e.g. golf, football, swimming, tennis) and social (e.g. gaming, theatre, movie, nights out) activities.
• Expand your horizons in a rich multicultural environment and collaborate with colleagues from all over the globe.
• Clearly defined career paths improved with inhouse training and financial support for external study.
• Opportunities to travel around the world and work directly with our customers.
• Pension scheme, health insurance, company doctor, life cover and sick pay/income continuance plan.
• Tax saver commuter/bike to work scheme.

Primary country and city: Ireland (IE) || Athlone