Principal AI Solution Engineer

Vodafone New Zealand Limited; New Zealand; On-site; NZD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully subsidised health insurance

Lifestyle leave

Discounts on products and services

Job summary

Vodafone New Zealand Limited is looking for a Principal AI Solution Engineer to drive AI solution engineering strategies and initiatives. In this role, you will collaborate with stakeholders to develop scalable AI solutions and provide technical leadership across complex projects.

The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in AI solutions, proven leadership skills, and a strong understanding of software engineering. The position offers flexible working options, health insurance, and lifestyle leave.

Qualifications

• Deep hands-on expertise across AI solution engineering, GenAI and LLM integration.
• Proven technical leadership skills and ability to motivate technical teams.
• Strong understanding of AI solution patterns and workflows.

Responsibilities

• Own the AI engineering strategy and initiatives execution.
• Mentor and uplift engineers for technical leadership.
• Ensure AI solutions are performant, explainable, and production-ready.

Skills

AI solution engineering

GenAI

LLM integration

DevOps

AgentOps

Python

APIs

Software engineering principles

Tools

AWS

Vector databases

Job description

Principal AI Solution Engineer

As the Principal AI Solution Engineer your role is to collaborate closely with business stakeholders and engineering teams to understand needs and develop highly performant, scalable AI and data solutions that support One NZ’s business strategies. As a key member of the AI & Data Engineering team, you’ll provide hands‑on technical leadership across complex initiatives, own and uplift AI solution engineering craft, and help shape the technical patterns, frameworks and delivery practices that enable One NZ to become the most AI‑enabled telco in the world.

Ko tō mahi – what you’ll do

• Own the detailed technical solutioning and execution of AI engineering strategy and initiatives.
• Translate technical strategy, standards and architecture into practical implementation plans and executable solution designs.
• Provide hands‑on technical leadership across complex delivery streams, ensuring solutions align to agreed standards, patterns and architectural direction.
• Develop, maintain and champion reusable AI, data, cloud and software engineering patterns that support consistent delivery across squads.
• Mentor and uplift engineers through pairing, design reviews, technical coaching, knowledge sharing and structured development planning.
• Maintain and reinforce AI engineering frameworks covering solution design, coding standards, DevOps and AgentOps practices, prompt and agent patterns, lifecycle management, observability, evaluation, governance and production readiness.
• Rapidly prototype and test new technologies, approaches and solution patterns to validate feasibility and reduce delivery risk.
• Ensure AI solutions are secure, safe, scalable, observable, performant, explainable, reliable, cost‑aware and production‑ready.
• Guide technical decision‑making, resolve delivery blockers and provide clear recommendations on feasibility, trade‑offs, risks, investment choices and delivery approach.
• Produce clear technical designs, decision records, implementation guides, runbooks and knowledge‑sharing materials.
• Define and uplift the AI Solution Engineering craft, including capability standards, development pathways, certification plans and engineering quality practices.

Na tōu rourou – what you’ll bring

• Deep hands‑on expertise across AI solution engineering, GenAI, LLM integration, agentic workflows, prompt engineering, retrieval augmented generation, APIs, automation, cloud platforms, DevOps, AgentOps and modern software practices.
• Proven technical leadership skills, with the ability to coach, motivate and develop technical professionals through teaching, feedback, mentoring and structured development planning.
• Strong understanding of AI solution patterns, including LLM orchestration, RAG, agent design, tool use, workflow automation, human‑in‑the‑loop design, evaluation frameworks, vector stores and enterprise integration patterns.
• Strong knowledge of software engineering principles and modern programming environments, including Python, APIs, CI/CD, testing, data quality, metadata, semantic layers, knowledge retrieval and access control.
• Proven hands‑on experience working with cloud and AI platforms, ideally including AWS, enterprise AI platforms, orchestration tools, vector databases, monitoring tooling and integration with existing data platforms.
• Ability to turn strategy, standards and high‑level architecture into practical implementation plans and working solutions, balancing engineering outcomes with cost, risk, timeframes and business value.
• A responsible approach to data and AI use, with strong awareness of cyber security, privacy, compliance, governance and operational risk.
• Systems thinking and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to work through ambiguity and create pragmatic, scalable solution options.
• Clear technical communication and influencing skills, with the ability to explain design decisions, challenge direction constructively and bring teams along collaboratively.
• One New Zealand is leading the way by ensuring you can have a truly balanced life. Most roles allow flexibility to work from home and flex your hours to enjoy work & whānau commitments.
• A fully subsidised Southern Cross health insurance cover for you and your family.
• Lifestyle leave, giving you the option to purchase an extra week or two of annual leave.
• Discounts on One New Zealand products, services and much more!

We are proudly Rainbow Tick certified and champion diversity of thought, perspective and background. Joining our whānau is more than starting a new job – it’s the beginning of a journey that will challenge and inspire you to play a role in something bigger.