AI Engineer Manchester Based Hybrid Role We're seeking a pragmatic and highly skilled AI Engineer to join a fast-growing FinTech company as their first dedicated AI hire. This is a rare opportunity to build AI capability from the ground up in a business that processes payments for leading global brands. This is an AI engineering role focused on creating the secure infrastructure that enables enterprise-grade AI agents to interact safely with production payment systems. You'll be designing and implementing the company's Model Context Protocol (MCP) capability - essentially building the bridge between modern AI agents (ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor) and critical business operations, while maintaining the security, compliance and reliability standards expected of financial technology. The Role -As the founding AI Engineer, you'll be responsible for: -Designing and building the company's MCP server framework aligned to open standards -Creating AI-accessible API operations (refunds, gateway configuration, etc.) with strict permissioning and security guardrails -Implementing authentication, authorisation, logging, and full auditability for all AI agent interactions -Building and operating the AI knowledge retrieval layer using vector databases -Implementing hybrid semantic/lexical search capabilities -Monitoring, testing, and optimising performance, reliability, and failure modes Establishing standards and patterns for future embedded AI capabilities -Shaping the company's AI strategy from an infrastructure and tooling perspective -Building internal AI capability and maintaining technical documentation -Working cross-functionally to integrate AI in ways that enhance developer productivity and internal operations Essential Experience -Backend engineering background with production-level experience designing and operating APIs and platform services -Hands-on LLM integration - practical experience working with OpenAI, Claude, Cursor, Gemini, or similar agent-based AI systems -Experience with vector databases and modern search technologies