Ignite AI Partners
Technical AI Consultant
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Driving AI Adoption and Delivery
About Ignite AI Partners
Ignite AI Partners is The Retail AI Specialists. Our purpose is simple: putting AI to work for retailers. We help retail and consumer-facing organisations move from executive alignment and opportunity identification through to production delivery, adoption and measurable value.
We are an independent, senior-led consultancy combining business transformation, AI, data and engineering expertise. Through our Centre of Delivery & Enablement (CoDE), we deliver practical solutions using trusted data, reusable accelerators and clear governance - always putting business outcomes before technology.
Our ambition is to become the world's most trusted Retail AI adoption and delivery partner. We are retail-first, not retail-only, and continue to apply our approach in adjacent sectors where there is strong strategic and commercial alignment.
Role and Purpose
The Technical AI Consultant is the flagship practitioner role within Ignite's future operating model and a core part of the CoDE delivery capability. The role bridges business consulting and technology: understanding a client's strategy and operating model, identifying valuable AI opportunities, shaping credible solution concepts and helping lead delivery through to adoption and measurable outcomes.
You will be technically fluent enough to lead most discovery, advisory and early solution conversations independently. You will explain AI and architecture in clear business language, develop high-level solution options, identify risks and dependencies, and work confidently with Architects, Engineers and Delivery colleagues when deeper technical design is required.
This is not a Solution Architect role. The Principal Architect retains formal technical authority, detailed architecture assurance and ownership of engineering standards. The Technical AI Consultant owns the bridge between business need, solution intent, client value and successful delivery.
Responsibilities
Business Transformation Leadership
- Lead executive and operational discovery, including AI Partner Diagnostics (AIPDs), opportunity assessments, workshops and stakeholder interviews.
- Develop a clear understanding of each client's strategy, operating model, customer proposition, data landscape and value drivers.
- Translate complex business challenges into prioritised AI opportunities, transformation roadmaps and investable business cases.
- Define outcomes, value measures, adoption requirements and change implications from the outset, keeping work anchored to measurable impact.
- Bring relevant retail and sector insight to client conversations while applying Ignite's principles of outcome before technology and independent advice.
Technical Solution Leadership
- Translate business needs into high-level AI, data and automation solution concepts that are credible, practical and aligned to client constraints.
- Lead technical discovery and solution-option workshops, explaining trade-offs clearly to both executive and technical stakeholders.
- Produce and communicate conceptual architectures, process flows, data requirements, integration needs and functional designs.
- Apply working knowledge of generative AI, LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, agents, predictive AI, data platforms, APIs, automation and cloud services.
- Identify material data, security, governance, integration and delivery risks early, escalating formal architecture decisions to the Principal Architect.
- Support proposals and Statements of Work by clarifying scope, assumptions, dependencies and outcomes; collaborate with technical colleagues on detailed design and estimation.
Delivery Leadership
- Own the consulting outcomes and solution intent on client engagements, working within Ignite's Delivery Excellence and CoDE governance.
- Work closely with Delivery Managers, Architects and Engineers to turn the agreed solution into a clear, executable plan and backlog.
- Maintain alignment between client outcomes, user needs and technical delivery as decisions and constraints evolve.
- Support validation, adoption, value realisation and senior stakeholder communication throughout delivery.
- Surface risks and decisions early, contribute to pragmatic resolution and ensure handovers contain no avoidable ambiguity.
- Capture learning and reusable assets at closeout so every engagement improves the next.
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Strategic Account Growth
- Act as a trusted adviser within assigned strategic accounts, building credibility through insight, challenge and delivery impact.
- Maintain a strong understanding of client priorities, stakeholders, value opportunities and the longer-term AI adoption roadmap.
- Identify, shape and qualify expansion opportunities that solve genuine client problems and fit Ignite's strategy and capabilities.
- Contribute to account plans, opportunity forecasts, executive value reviews and proposals in partnership with Commercial Growth colleagues.
- Focus on relationship depth and opportunity creation; routine CRM and commercial coordination are supported through the growth enablement function.
Practice Development & Innovation
- Develop reusable consulting assets, methods, playbooks, solution patterns and accelerators that make future delivery faster and better.
- Contribute directly to the evolution and productisation of the AIPD, retained optimisation services and CoDE ways of working.
- Turn live engagement learning into practical IP, case studies, thought leadership and internal knowledge.
- Contribute to Ignite's Retail Academy through peer learning, mentoring and the development of sector and technical capability.
- Track relevant developments in AI and retail, testing emerging approaches responsibly and translating them into client value.
Core Capability Expectations
A successful Technical AI Consultant at Ignite should be able to operate confidently across the following capabilities:
- Executive facilitation: Lead structured conversations with senior leaders, create alignment and turn ambiguity into a clear course of action.
- Opportunity-to-solution translation: Connect a business problem to a credible AI solution concept without waiting for routine technical interpretation.
- Technical fluency: Explain common AI, data, automation and cloud patterns accurately, including their limitations, dependencies and trade-offs.
- High-level solution design: Create conceptual architectures, data and process flows, integration views and functional requirements that give technical teams a strong starting point.
- Value and adoption: Build outcome-led business cases, define measures of success and shape the organisational changes needed to sustain value.
- Delivery bridge: Maintain a clear thread from what the client needs, through what Ignite proposes, to what the delivery team builds and the client adopts.
- Trusted-adviser relationships: Build executive confidence through judgement and insight, identifying expansion opportunities without becoming an account administrator.
- Reusable thinking: Convert engagement learning into assets and patterns that strengthen Ignite's practitioner bench and improve future margins.
- Sound judgement: Know what can be led independently, when to challenge, and when specialist architecture or engineering authority is required.
Role Boundary
The Technical AI Consultant is expected to shape and communicate high-level solutions, not to approve detailed architectures, own engineering standards, provide final technical estimates or act as the senior technical authority. Those accountabilities remain with the Principal Architect and relevant technical leads.
Candidate Requirements
Experience
- Significant experience in AI, data, digital or technology-enabled transformation, gained in consulting or a complex client-facing environment.
- A strong record of turning strategic ambition into practical programmes, solutions and measurable business outcomes.
- Experience in retail, ecommerce or consumer-facing organisations is highly desirable; strong adjacent-sector experience is also valued.
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Technical Capability
- Strong working knowledge of modern data, AI and software delivery lifecycles, with enough technical depth to engage confidently with Architects and Engineers.
- Comfort interpreting technical artefacts and using analytical or prototyping tools; practical exposure to SQL, Python, low-code or cloud tooling is advantageous but hands-on coding is not the core of the role.
- Understanding of data quality, governance, security, responsible AI and the operational requirements of production solutions.
Architecture & Solution Design
- Experience shaping high-level solution architectures across applications, data, AI, integrations and automation.
- Able to produce clear conceptual designs, identify non-functional requirements and expose assumptions, constraints and dependencies.
- Understands the boundary between solution shaping and formal architectural authority, and collaborates effectively with the Principal Architect.
AI Technologies
- Fluent in the practical application of generative AI, LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, AI agents, machine learning, predictive analytics and intelligent automation.
- Working knowledge of cloud AI and data platforms, ideally Microsoft Azure, together with APIs, integration patterns and modern data architectures.
- Able to evaluate build, buy and partner options independently, separating genuine value from technology hype.
Consulting & Leadership
- Exceptional workshop facilitation, structured problem-solving and communication skills, with credibility at executive and operational levels.
- Able to influence without relying on hierarchy, lead cross-functional teams and create clarity in uncertain or rapidly changing situations.
- Strong written skills across client presentations, strategy outputs, business cases, proposals and Statements of Work.
Commercial Awareness
- Understands how solution choices affect value, scope, effort, delivery risk, margin and long-term client outcomes.
- Experience shaping propositions, qualifying opportunities and supporting commercially robust proposals and Statements of Work.
- Able to develop strategic relationships and identify expansion opportunities while maintaining independent, client-first judgement.
Mindset
- Curious, pragmatic, outcome-led and comfortable combining strategic thinking with delivery detail.
- Motivated by retail and the practical application of AI, with a habit of learning continuously and sharing knowledge generously.
- Thrives in a high-growth consultancy where roles are broad, standards are high and collaboration matters more than hierarchy.
Why Join Us?
Shape a Category
Join Ignite as we establish The Retail AI Specialists and build the practitioner model at the heart of our three-year strategy.
Meaningful Client Impact
Work directly with senior leaders to put AI into production and create measurable operational and commercial outcomes.
Bridge Strategy and Technology
Operate across the full journey from executive alignment and AIPD discovery through solution shaping, delivery and value realisation.
Build What Comes Next
Help create the methods, accelerators and reusable IP that become Ignite's long-term strategic advantage.
Senior, Collaborative Team
Work alongside experienced Consultants, Architects, Engineers and Delivery leaders in a low-ego environment where expertise is shared.
Accelerated Development
Build retail, consulting and technical capability through live engagements, the Retail Academy and direct exposure to ambitious clients.
Influence and Recognition
Make a visible contribution to how Ignite grows, with a competitive package that recognises the expertise and impact you bring.
If you are excited by the opportunity to combine business transformation, AI solution thinking and trusted client leadership
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