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Director of AI Engineering:
Company Overview:
Our client is an AI start-up on a mission to redefine how intelligent systems solve real-world problems through cutting-edge artificial intelligence technologies. Backed by early-stage investors and building momentum towards the next growth phase, we are exclusively assisting our client in building a team of bold thinkers, top-tier engineers, and commercially driven innovators.
We’re now hiring a Director of AI Engineering to drive the technical strategy, lead the engineering team, and represent the company’s deep tech capabilities both internally and externally.
This is a unique opportunity offering a mixed blend of hands-on technical capability and leadership responsibilities
Role Summary:
As Director of AI Engineering, you will be responsible for the strategic and hands-on leadership of the AI Engineering division. You will head the UK-based Research & Development team and play a critical role in steering the company’s technical roadmap, research agenda, and engineering execution.
The Director of AI Engineering will serve as the technical co-pilot of our client, owning the company’s AI and machine learning vision while managing the engineering and research teams. You’ll drive fundamental breakthroughs in behavioural AI, guide product integration, and serve as the Technical Lead for the organisation.
You must combine world-class technical depth with strategic clarity and commercial understanding. This is a high-impact executive role that shapes both what they build and how they grow.
The ideal candidate combines academic depth, startup agility, and an enterprise-level outlook, preferably holding a PhD or equivalent in a related field, with extensive experience in AI/ML engineering and a demonstrated history of team leadership and alignment with commercial goals.
Key Responsibilities:
* Strategic Leadership: Define and evolve the company’s AI strategy and technical roadmap, aligning with product and go-to-market priorities.
* Research & Development Ownership: Lead the UK-based technical research & development team, fostering a culture of innovation and experimentation.
* Technical Oversight: Oversee the technical architecture and ensure the scalability, reliability, and security of AI systems
* Build a scalable engineering organisation and instil best practices in model development, system architecture, deployment, and experimentation.
* Balance deep technical decision-making with business practicality, ensuring feasibility, budget alignment, and time-to-market optimisation.
* Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with engineering, product, and design to translate research into production-ready features.
* Represent the company in technical discussions with investors, strategic partners, and at conferences.
* Act as a thought partner to the founders on AI strategy and vision.
* Stay across the latest advancements in AI and machine learning to ensure they stay at the forefront of technology
Requirements:
* Must be open to global travel – typically between the UK and US as well as UK-wide, i.e. London to Manchester and vice versa.
* Deep expertise in AI Engineering, including experience leading teams building machine learning systems.
* Experience building foundational Machine Learning Models, specifically models trained from scratch
* Experience with transformer-based LLMs or multimodal on large-scale data sets
* PhD in AI, Machine Learning, Computational Linguistics, Cognitive Science or a closely related field.
* Strong background in technical R&D, productisation of AI research – from ideation to creation, and driving innovation from lab to launch.
* Commercially astute, with experience working in a startup or high-growth tech environment.
* Excellent people leadership skills, with the ability to attract, retain, and develop top-tier technical talent.
* Experience in a corporate or Big Tech environment, ideally with investor visibility.
* Prior involvement in VC fundraising processes or strategic technology partnerships.
* A strong public profile in AI research, conferences, or publications.
* Competitive salary: Up to £150,000 - £200,000 base – dependent on experience and expertise
* Equity package on offer
* Flexible working environment
* Early-stage leadership opportunity with board-level visibility and influence
Seniority level
* Seniority level
Director
Employment type
* Employment type
Full-time
Job function
* Job function
Information Technology
* Industries
Technology, Information and Media
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