Ocho
Lead AI Engineer
Get notified of more jobs like this · No spam, ever
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
Lead AI Engineer | Belfast (Remote-First) | AI Centre of Excellence
At a Glance
- Location: Northern Ireland – Remote working
- Stack: Azure, Python, React, Terraform
About the Company
A large, well-established global technology company with a dedicated AI Centre of Excellence — a team set apart from its core consulting and digital services divisions, focused purely on applied research and product builds using the latest Microsoft AI technology.
Role Overview
You'll join a close-knit team of around 10-11 engineers (the majority in Belfast, with others in Poland, Birmingham, and London) as a Senior AI Engineer, providing technical leadership on AI-powered products and applied research work. This isn't a billable, consulting-style role — there's no utilisation target and no client delivery pressure. The team is genuinely AI-first: they're looking for strong, well-rounded engineers rather than candidates who tick every box, whether your background is more AI-shaped or more software-shaped.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide technical leadership and own architecture, planning, and delivery for AI-powered products and applied research projects
- Build and integrate AI/ML solutions — model integration, evaluation, prompt engineering, and RAG pipelines — using Azure AI services (Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Foundry, Cognitive Services)
- Design and develop across the full stack, from API design and data pipelines through to front-end integration
- Coach, mentor, and support the development of junior engineers within the team
- Drive modern CI/CD practice, including model versioning, experiment tracking, and automated evaluation for ML/AI workloads
What You'll Need
Essential:
- Strong hands-on experience in Python or C#/.NET, with real experience building AI/ML-powered products (model integration, evaluation, prompt engineering, or RAG)
- Technical experience — owning architecture, planning, and delivery for a product or project, with a track record of coaching and developing junior engineers
- Experience with Microsoft Azure AI services (Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Foundry, Cognitive Services) or an equivalent cloud AI platform
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Desirable:
- Familiarity with the Microsoft agent ecosystem — Microsoft Agent Framework, Copilot Studio, Microsoft 365 Agents SDK, or Semantic Kernel
- Understanding of responsible AI practice — content filtering, PII handling, bias testing, governance of autonomous agent actions
- Experience with vector databases or search indices, and broader public cloud platforms (Azure or AWS)
Benefits & Package
- Salary: £ DOE
- Location: Fully remote-first NI Wide — no mandatory office days, with an optional Wednesday in-office and roughly monthly full-team get-togethers
- Interview Process: Straightforward two-stage interview process — culture and skills, then a technical deep dive — no take-home assessment
Get in touch
Get in touch with Colin directly at colin@ochopeople.com
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills
Location