Technical Lead, Central AI Lab

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United Kingdom.

📋 Description

• Develop and deploy production-grade AI functionalities that can be utilized across Vesta Business Units (BUs).

• Set a high standard as a hands-on engineer, demonstrating best practices, and transforming pilots into repeatable starter kits with a strong focus on DevOps, security, and disciplined handover processes.

• Deliver reusable "starter kits" that align with the AI-First Strategy build plan (e.g., Maintenance automation kit, AI-SDLC kit, Commercial/Sales acceleration kit).

• Create production-ready pilots that include clear monitoring, evaluation, runbooks, and handover processes to BUs.

• Develop reference architectures and implementation patterns that function across diverse BU tech stacks (Azure, AWS, on-prem, legacy products).

• Take ownership of the end-to-end solution design and implementation for central pilots and reusable components.

• Lead technical discovery sessions with BUs, concentrating on constraints, data readiness, integration points, and security requirements.

• Facilitate the adoption of AI-DLC (AI driven Development Lifecycle) methodology across Portfolio BUs by exemplifying best practices and supporting change management during transitions.

• Establish CI/CD patterns for AI-enabled systems, including tests, security scanning, release gates, and environment separation.

• Enhance reliability by focusing on observability, cost management, latency, fallbacks, and safe failure modes.

• Operationalize AI-DLC/AI-SDLC practices including spec-first delivery, evaluation harnesses, quality gates, and auditable artifacts.

• Ensure solutions can be operated safely by BUs with minimal reliance on central resources (documentation, runbooks, dashboards, training).

• Mentor junior engineers and partner engineers in modern SDLC, DevOps, and practical AI delivery.

• Contribute to internal playbooks, templates, and showcase case studies.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 7 years of experience in building and maintaining production software systems (SaaS, enterprise, or similar).

• Strong understanding of SDLC fundamentals including testing, code review, CI/CD, release management, and incident management.

• Demonstrated ability to design secure systems encompassing authN/authZ, secrets management, auditing/logging, and least privilege principles.

• Proficient in backend engineering (APIs, data stores, asynchronous patterns) with the ability to work "full stack" when necessary.

• Competence in Cloud and DevOps (AWS and/or Azure; containers; infrastructure automation).

• Practical experience with integrating AI/LLM capabilities into products or workflows (a background as an "AI researcher" is not required).

• Ability to work effectively across various technology environments (legacy and modern), demonstrating high autonomy and strong stakeholder communication.

• Familiarity with modernization patterns (strangler, wrappers, service extraction) is a plus.

• Exposure to Model Context Protocol (MCP) or similar context/tooling integration techniques is advantageous.

• Experience in delivering customer-facing support automation, voice workflows, or knowledge systems is beneficial.

• Experience in vertical market software or managing multi-product portfolios is a plus.

🏝️ Benefits

• Optional international travel (USA/Canada/South America) for portfolio events.

• Occasional travel to the UK for BU workshops, onboarding, and group events.