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Engineering Manager (Consulting) – Retail Tech, Architecture, AI Engineering & Agentic Systems – Global Enterprises
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Engineering Manager (Consulting) – Retail Tech, Architecture, AI Engineering & Agentic Systems – Global Enterprises
The Takeaway
This is a consulting role for an ex–Tech Lead or Engineering Manager who can guide enterprise engineering teams, shape architecture, and embed modern AI engineering processes & practices (including agentic coding systems like Claude Code) without writing code themselves. You’ll understand exactly what engineers are doing, how AI‑augmented pipelines operate, and how to support teams through the transition within retail tech domains (e.g. POS, OMS, WMS, ERP, eCommerce).
You’ll be the person who understands how everything works under the hood, even if you’re not the one typing, influencing senior retail stakeholders to ensure secure, scalable and successful adoption of AI engineering across global retail organisations.
About the Role
We’re hiring an Engineering Manager (Consulting) to help large retail and consumer organisations modernise their engineering capability and adopt production‑grade AI. You’ll work across multiple enterprise‑scale retail clients, from omnichannel commerce platforms to supply‑chain systems, shaping architecture, guiding delivery teams, and introducing AI engineering workflows that leverage tools such as Claude Code, PI, and other agentic coding systems.
This role is hands-off in terms of coding, but deeply technical. You’ll be expected to understand how engineers work, how agentic systems interact with codebases, and how modern AI‑augmented development pipelines operate.
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What You’ll Do
- Lead architectural design and technical strategy for AI‑enabled platforms and enterprise systems across retail domains (e‑commerce, fulfilment, merchandising, supply chain, store operations).
- Introduce AI engineering practices including model lifecycle management, evaluation frameworks, data pipelines, CI/CD for ML, observability, safety and governance.
- Guide teams in adopting agentic coding systems (e.g., Claude Code, PI, MCP‑based tools) and integrating them into real workflows, repos and delivery processes.
- Act as a fractional Engineering Manager for client teams: shaping delivery, improving engineering discipline, and unblocking complex technical decisions.
- Review designs, challenge assumptions, and ensure solutions are buildable, scalable and safe.
- Coach engineering squads on modern practices: cloud‑native architecture, distributed systems, event‑driven patterns, scalable ML deployment.
- Translate ambiguous business goals into clear technical direction, actionable roadmaps and architectural patterns.
- Partner with CTOs, Heads of Engineering, Architecture and programme leadership to raise engineering maturity and accelerate AI adoption across retail technology estates.
What You Bring
- Prior experience as an engineer progressing to Tech Lead and ideally Engineering Manager in high‑scale, complex environments. Retail tech experience strongly preferred (e‑commerce, supply chain, ERP, POS, OMS, merchandising or logistics platforms).
- Strong architectural capability across cloud‑native systems, distributed design, integration patterns and enterprise platforms.
- Practical experience delivering AI/ML systems into production, including MLOps, model evaluation, monitoring and safety considerations.
- Familiarity with agentic coding systems (Claude Code, PI, MCP tools) and how they operate within real engineering environments.
- Ability to get “under the hood” of engineering work: reading code, understanding patterns, diagnosing issues, without being hands‑on in implementation.
- A track record of improving engineering culture, delivery practices and technical decision‑making in large organisations.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, able to simplify complexity and build trust with senior leaders across both technical and non‑technical retail functions.
- Comfort operating in consulting contexts: ambiguity, multi‑client environments, rapid context switching and outcome‑driven delivery.
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Why This Role Matters
Retail is undergoing rapid transformation, from AI‑driven personalisation to autonomous supply chains, and enterprises need leaders who understand both the architectural foundations and the emerging agentic tooling reshaping how software is built. You’ll help organisations adopt AI safely, effectively and at scale, influencing strategy, delivery, culture and capability across multiple global retail clients.
£90k–£105k + bonus. London & 80% remote.
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