AI Team Lead

Hunkemöller; Hilversum; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days leave

Hybrid work

Work abroad for up to 2 weeks/year

International environment

Travel allowance

Academy access

Employee discount

Job summary

Hunkemöller is seeking a senior AI/Cloud leader to drive the AI priorities from leadership into concrete deliverables. The role requires influencing across departments, managing internal and external partners, and ensuring responsible AI use within a hybrid work setting in Hilversum, NL.

You will report to the Head of Data, Analytics and AI and lead a small team while building an AI champions network and tracking value realization.

Qualifications

• Experience in technical product ownership or engineering leadership, with hands-on AI delivery.
• Ability to review partner architecture and estimates for cloud-based AI solutions.
• Proven track record managing agencies, system integrators or freelancers on fixed-scope work.
• Comfortable making decisions with incomplete information as priorities shift.

Responsibilities

• Deliver Leadership Priorities: translate AI priorities into scoped deliverables with acceptance criteria and business owner.
• Decide Build or Partner: set scope with a fixed agreement and ensure partners meet standards.
• Own AI Standards and Platform Choices: define criteria for AI platforms, data access, cost, and maintenance; manage Google Cloud agent platform with cloud team.
• Run What the Team Delivers: monitor, maintain, and handle incidents for AI solutions in production.
• Be the Go-To Point for AI: triage requests to champions, team, or partners while maintaining support to ~20% capacity.
• Build the AI Champions Network: recruit and train AI champions across departments to surface opportunities.
• Lead and Develop the Team: plan work, coach two engineers, and ensure cross-coverage.
• Report Value: track savings and adoption per deliverable and report progress to leadership and the AI Board.

Skills

AI leadership

Cloud platforms

Google Cloud

Delivery leadership

Stakeholder management

Team coaching

Tools

Google Cloud

APIs

Job description

Hunkemöller is a fast-moving fashion retailer, so priorities shift and structure is light. The right candidate is energized by that, makes sound calls quickly, and brings people along. You will report to the Head of Data, Analytics and AI. This is a hybrid role, partly from home and partly at our office in Hilversum, the Netherlands, so we are only considering applicants who live within commuting distance of Hilversum. We value demonstrated skill over a traditional career path, and the selection process includes a short practical exercise.

Responsibilities

• Deliver Leadership Priorities: Turn the AI priorities set by leadership and the AI Board into scoped deliverables with clear acceptance criteria, estimates and a named business owner.
• Decide Build or Partner: Decide whether work is delivered by the team or by an external partner, set fixed-scope agreements, and hold partners to Hunkemöller standards.
• Own AI Standards and Platform Choices: Set the criteria for choosing AI platforms and tools per use case, covering data access, cost, integration and maintenance, define the rules partners and vendors work within, and manage the Google Cloud agent platform and its generative capabilities together with our cloud team.
• Run What the Team Delivers: Own monitoring, maintenance, running cost and incident handling for the AI solutions the team puts into production.
• Be the Go-To Point for AI: Act as first point of contact for AI questions across the business, triage each request to a champion, the team, the cloud owner or a partner, and keep support to about a fifth of team capacity.
• Build the AI Champions Network: Recruit, train and support AI champions in each department who handle first-line questions and bring new opportunities to the team.
• Lead and Develop the Team: Plan the team's work, coach two engineers, and make sure each can cover the other's basic work.
• Report Value: Track realized savings and adoption per deliverable and report progress to leadership and the AI Board.

Requirements

• Experience in technical product ownership, delivery leadership or engineering leadership, including leading a small team that both delivered solutions and supported internal users. Recent hands‑on experience delivering AI solutions matters more than years in a role.
• Hands‑on experience & understanding in cloud platforms, APIs and language‑model applications to review a partner's architecture and estimates, and to understand platform issues well enough to resolve or route them. Experience with Google Cloud is a plus.
• Proven experience managing agencies, system integrators or freelancers on fixed‑scope work.
• Comfortable making decisions with incomplete information as priorities change, and deciding what becomes a deliverable and what stays a quick answer.
• You excel at building trust across departments, explaining complex concepts to technical and non‑technical audiences, and saying no when a request does not hold up.
• Understanding of how AI work translates into cost avoided, time saved and adoption, and you can build and defend a business case. Retail, fashion or ecommerce experience is a strong plus.
• Deep understanding of data access and privacy, and the risks of AI tools that can read or change business data.
• Written and verbal English communication skills. Dutch is a plus.

What we offer

• 25 days of annual leave, with the option to buy or sell up to 4 additional days
• Hybrid work model, combining office and remote working
• Possibility towork from abroad for up to 2 weeks per year
• Aninternational work environment, working with teams across different countries
• Travel allowanceto support commuting costs
• Access to theHunkemöller Academyfor professional development
• 25% employee discounton all Hunkemöller products