AI Tech Lead

About the role As a AI-Tech Lead for the IMS domain, you will be an enterprise-level senior leader who is pivotal in driving material EBIT impact through application of AI technology across the client Group. Reporting to the Group Head of Software Engineering and aligned to the Group’s Chief Data Scientist, you will be accountable for ensuring technical designs and overarching technology strategy provide an optimal balance between cost, risk, time to value, and all other considerations, for AI solutions and ML platform development. Critically, you will provide significant input into product architecture for re-usable AI products that can be adopted by more than one part of the Group within the domain of IMS (related to Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Services). In so doing, you will maximise re-use potential whilst minimising any associated product premium. This will involve articulating and mitigating technical risks in a disciplined and data-driven manner and supporting development of technical blueprints that left-shift discovery and early value release, and subsequently evolve into fully industrialised enterprise AI products. You will simplify the complexities of operating in a multi-tenanted environment by building reusable products that work seamlessly across multiple Operating Companies. And you will continuously monitor and reduce internal consumers’ effort required to discover and adopt these AI-powered products by treating colleagues as customers and optimizing the associated journeys. You will also be accountable for the technical direction for AI / ML platforms for IMS products, including lightweight generative AI abstraction and the route to live and runtime platform for ML development. And you will ensure that all teams operate a structured, agile technical governance process which supports rapid and auditable decision-making with appropriately devolved responsibilities, evidencing conformance to all standards and guardrails for re-usable technical components, design patterns, interfaces and machine learning models. You will maintain an “always-on” view of the ever-changing external AI landscape, and lead on modelling the costs and benefits of individual generative models and associated implementation approaches. You will work closely with the AI Engineering Lead and IMS squad tech leads in client’s AI Labs (currently London and Barcelona) to build an aligned community of enthusiastic, forward-looking pragmatists who continuously challenge themselves to learn and improve as individuals whilst also driving incremental improvements to ROI for AI investments across the Group you will design, build, and maintain robust data pipelines and architectures to enable AI-driven solutions for business, ensuring frameworks can scale across all OpCos. This role demands consultancy-level technical depth combined with strong delivery discipline. Tell me more, tell me more… Our client is currently looking for a new recruit in joining their team, please read on! You can also ask our friendly recruitment team any questions you may have about the role, between 8:30am-5:30pm Monday to Friday. Shifts: Monday – Friday (37.5 hours per week) Experience and Skills Required: This will require • weekly travel, relationship-building and influencing, including at executive level, across client AI teams and OpCos • assessing the feasibility of new AI initiatives, use cases, and adoption of existing propositions, and identifying low-cost, quick-start technical approaches to support left-shifted value • operating a structured and data-driven approach to articulating and burning down technical risk • modelling adoption cost • owning technical governance, including the KDD (Key Design Decision) process for IMS products, supporting rapid auditable decision-making and conformance to Group standards for reusable components, design patterns, and ML models • experience and knowledge of technical approach to model development and contemporary ML engineering, including 3rd party platforms, routes to live and CICD pipelines for MLOps and data science • maintaining a disciplined, auditable approach to architectural decision making aligned to agile principles • working with other teams to ensure smooth operational introduction of new services in accordance with all required procedures and guardrails, whilst identifying and sponsoring improvements to the existing processes • continuously assessing and disseminating new 3rd party AI capabilities to ensure client and the operating companies have access to the most cost-effective options • architectural consensus building with client CTO, CDIO, cloud platform and data platform teams You will also foster an engaged community of technology practitioners and interested parties across the Group, and partner with the People and Culture team to ensure AI Academy learning path content / curricula are created and consumed by colleagues across the Group. Preferred Consulting-Level Competencies • Ability to design enterprise-grade data solutions under tight timelines. • Strong stakeholder engagement and solution-oriented mindset. • Experience in advisory or consulting roles for data engineering projects. • Track record of creating high-impact outcomes and driving stakeholder satisfaction from day one. • Ability to implement standards and frameworks for scalable data solutions across multiple operating companies Responsibilities • At least 10 years of experience working in Enterprise Engineering, working in complex environments, including the delivery of AI tools and capabilities, with a proven track record of delivering tangible value through technology • Willingness and ability to be on-site and travel weekly between Barcelona and London • Enthusiastic, optimistic, forward-looking • Outstanding leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to inspire and motivate a diverse and cross-functional team • Strategic and analytical thinker, with the ability to translate business problems and opportunities into potential AI solutions and actions. • Ability to frame complex technical considerations for consumption by time-poor executives to support decision-making and education • Airline industry experience is preferred. What’s in it for you? – Our client loves to reward their people for doing a great job. • This is a 6-month contract.(with possibility of extension) • A day rate, in-scope IR35 either PAYE or Hays approved Umbrella company • This role provides a hybrid working access from the comforts of your own home and only going to our state-of-the-art office in Waterside (2/3) days per week. • May involve international travel Next Steps Once you’ve applied, one of our friendly recruitment consultants will give you a call and talk you through the screening process. If your application is successful, you’ll be involved in a live virtual interview with one of our client’s hiring managers to get to know you better. We look forward to speaking to you!