AI & Automation Tech Lead — Build Scalable Solutions

Sanlam; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 1,500,000 - 2,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Sanlam Corporate is seeking a Tech Lead Engineering – AI and Automation to anchor AI/automation design, build and operations. You will lead engineers, set standards, review code, and drive production-ready solutions that reduce manual work and boost client experiences.

You will shape reference architectures, promote reusable patterns, and partner with business, product and data teams to prioritise AI use cases while ensuring compliance with POPIA and governance.

Qualifications

• Degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or related field.
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 years in a technical lead or team lead role.
• Proven experience delivering AI/ML or generative AI solutions into production.
• Experience delivering process automation (RPA, workflow or low-code platforms).
• Cloud certification (e.g., Azure or AWS) is advantageous.
• Financial services or insurance industry experience is advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Leads and grows AI, automation and software engineering teams, including recruitment and performance management.
• Defines engineering standards, reference architectures and reusable components for AI/automation.
• Designs and builds solutions using LLMs, RAG, AI agents and API integrations.
• Drives automation of business processes across administration, claims, underwriting and client servicing.
• Takes solutions from PoC to production, ensuring security, scalability, observability and supportability.
• Establishes MLOps/LLMOps practices including CI/CD, versioning, evaluation, monitoring and cost tracking.
• Embeds responsible AI controls in line with governance, POPIA and regulatory requirements.

Skills

Python

LLMs

AI/ML production

RAG

Automation

Leadership

APIs & Microservices

Education

Degree in Computer Science / Engineering / Information Systems or related

Tools

UiPath

Power Automate

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Sanlam Corporate is seeking a Tech Lead Engineering – AI and Automation to anchor AI/automation design, build and operations. You will lead engineers, set standards, review code, and drive production-ready solutions that reduce manual work and boost client experiences.

You will shape reference architectures, promote reusable patterns, and partner with business, product and data teams to prioritise AI use cases while ensuring compliance with POPIA and governance.