Principle Applied AI Engineer

A large, established UK organisation investing heavily in AI and digital transformation. With a significant customer base, complex data and large-scale technology infrastructure, the business is expanding its Applied AI capability to deliver production-grade AI solutions across multiple areas. The clientWorking for a large, established UK organisation investing heavily in AI and digital transformation. You’ll join a growing Applied AI function focused on building production-grade AI solutions at scale, with the opportunity to shape technical standards, reusable capabilities and how AI is deployed across the wider business. It’s a hands-on role with plenty of ownership, combining complex technical delivery with the chance to influence a fast-growing engineering capability. The roleYou’ll join as a hands-on Principal Applied AI Engineer, taking ownership of complex AI systems from architecture through to production. Expect a mix of deep technical delivery and wider influence — leading the design of multi-agent systems, shaping evaluation and quality standards, building reusable AI capabilities and helping define how Applied AI engineering is done across the organisation. You’ll work closely with engineering, product, architecture and business teams, while mentoring others and setting technical direction. It’s a role with real ownership, plenty of ambiguity to turn into structure, and the chance to help shape a fast-growing AI capability rather than simply inherit one. The candidateThey are seeking a Principal Applied AI Engineer who brings: Strong software engineering foundations, with expert-level Python experience Proven experience taking agentic / LLM-powered systems into production — not just PoCs or prototypes Strong experience designing evaluation frameworks, including quality metrics, test cases, golden datasets and regression testing Hands-on MCP experience, ideally building or integrating MCP servers, tools or enterprise systems A strong understanding of agent architectures and orchestration, including what sits beneath frameworks such as LangGraph, LangChain or similar Experience across context engineering, retrieval, memory architectures and reusable AI tooling Experience using modern AI coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot or similar Principal-level technical ownership, including architecture, technical direction, mentoring and influencing engineering standards Someone who is still genuinely hands-on and comfortable operating in complex, production environments Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical decisions to senior business, product and technology stakeholders Experience within financial services, insurance or another regulated environment would be beneficial, but isn’t essential. AWS experience is also preferred, although strong experience with another cloud platform will be considered. What’s in it for you: Hybrid working – minimum 50% in office 29 days holiday + bank holidays Strong pension and private medical cover The opportunity to help shape a growing Applied AI function 2-round interview process: -60-minute technical interview, including technical questions and likely whiteboarding / problem-solving -30-minute second-stage interview