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Principal AI Engineer
AI Engineer Manager – Kainos
hackajob is collaborating with Kainos to connect them with exceptional professionals for this critical role.
Join Kainos and Shape the Future
At Kainos, we’re problem solvers, innovators, and collaborators—driven by a shared mission to create real impact. Whether we’re transforming digital services for millions, delivering cutting-edge Workday solutions, or pushing the boundaries of technology, we do it together.
We believe in a people-first culture, where your ideas are valued, your growth is supported, and your contributions truly make a difference. Here, you’ll be part of a diverse, ambitious team that celebrates creativity and collaboration.
Ready to make your mark? Join us and be part of something bigger.
About the Role
Kainos is recognised as one of the UK’s leading AI and data businesses, with a decade-long track record of delivering impactful, production-grade AI solutions for clients across government, healthcare, defence and commercial sectors. Kainos is at the forefront of AI innovation, trusted by Microsoft, AWS, and others to deliver advanced AI and data solutions at citizen scale.
Our 150-strong AI and Data Practice brings together deep expertise in machine learning, generative AI, agentic AI, and data. We are pioneers in responsible AI, having authored the UK government’s AI Cyber Security Code of Practice implementation guide. We partner with leading organisations to ensure AI is deployed ethically, securely, and with measurable business value. Our teams are at the cutting edge of AI research, delivery—and it is truly an exciting team to join as Kainos further grows its AI capability.
Main Purpose of the Role & Key Responsibilities
As an AI Engineer Manager at Kainos, you’ll be responsible for:
- Delivering advanced AI solutions leveraging state-of-the-art machine learning, generative AI, and agentic AI technologies.
- Driving the adoption of modern AI frameworks, AIops best practices, and scalable cloud-native architectures.
- Technical leadership, engaging with senior stakeholders to agree on architectural principles, strategic direction, and system architecture.
- Fostering a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and engineering excellence—both within Kainos and the wider industry.
- Managing, coaching, and developing a team, with a focus on:
- Developing standards and policies.
- Enduring customer relationships.
- Embedding commercial acumen.
- Providing direction and leadership for a team as you solve challenging problems together.
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Minimum (Essential) Requirements
To be considered for this role, you must have:
- A minimum of a 2.1 degree in Computer Science, AI, Data Science, Statistics, or a similar quantitative field.
- Proven experience in leading multi-disciplinary teams to deliver AI/ML solutions to production.
- Demonstrable expertise in technical leadership for AI delivery, including:
- Architecture.
- Product design principles.
- Engineering excellence.
- Experience with the latest AI engineering approaches, such as:
- Prompt engineering.
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
- Agentic AI.
- Model evaluation and monitoring using metrics (e.g., precision, recall, NDCG, and drift detection).
- Strong Python skills with a grounding in software engineering best practices (CI/CD, testing, code reviews, etc.).
- Experience developing solutions at scale on cloud platforms (Azure & AWS), including:
- Containerisation and orchestration tools (Kubernetes, Docker).
- Expertise in data engineering for AI, including handling:
- Large-scale, unstructured, and multimodal data.
- An understanding of:
- Responsible AI principles.
- Model interpretability.
- Ethical considerations.
- Strong interpersonal skills to:
- Lead client projects.
- Manage C-level stakeholders.
- Establish requirements/architecture concepts.
- Experience in managing, coaching and developing junior team members and wider communities.
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Desirable (Nice to Have)
Kainos values additional expertise, including:
- Experience with modern deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).
- Experience fine-tuning or distillation of LLMs (e.g., GPT, LLaMA, Claude, Gemini).
- Knowledge of machine learning libraries (e.g., scikit-learn, XGBoost).
- Familiarity with:
- Data storage for AI.
- Vector databases.
- Semantic search.
- Knowledge graphs.
- Active contributions to:
- Open-source AI projects.
- Research publications.
- Industry events/networking.
- Knowledge of AI security, privacy, and compliance standards (e.g., ISO 42001).
- Experience in shaping commercial AI offerings, including:
- Winning AI projects.
- Providing pre-sales support.
Embracing Our Differences
At Kainos, we believe in the power of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’re committed to building a team that reflects the world around us—one where everyone is valued, respected, and given an equal chance to thrive. We actively seek out talent from all backgrounds, regardless of:
- Age, race, ethnicity.
- Gender, sexual orientation.
- Religion, disability, or any other characteristic that makes you who you are.
Given that everyone’s journey is unique, our recruitment process is fully adaptable to meet your needs. Our welcoming talent acquisition team is ready to support you at every step, so if you require accommodations or adjustments—please reach out.
Together, we can create an inclusive environment where exceptional minds feel inspired to innovate and collaborate.
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