AI CoE Engineer

About the role

Version 1 has 98% AI adoption across the business, live agentic deployments, and a governance framework that routes each use case to self-service AI or CoE-led transformation. The AI Centre of Excellence (CoE) takes the complex, high-value use cases and turns them into production systems. Demand is growing and the CoE is taking on more production work. We are adding two AI CoE Engineers to give the team stable, senior hands-on capability.

You will work with business teams to understand their problems, then design, build and prove solutions. You will also set technical standards and help others in the CoE, including interns and early-career engineers, to build well. This is a hands-on role with an architecture element: you will shape solution designs and write the code that proves them.

Key responsibilities

• Understand the problem. Work with business and delivery teams to turn challenges and requirements into clear, scoped AI use cases.
• Build proofs of concept. Design and build working prototypes quickly, test them with users, and take the strongest into production.
• Design solutions. Define the architecture for agentic and generative AI solutions, covering model choice, data, integration, security and cost.
• Engineer for production. Build reliable, observable and maintainable AI applications, and support them once live.
• Support and develop others. Coach CoE colleagues and interns, review code and designs, and run training sessions that raise AI skills across the business.
• Set standards. Contribute reusable patterns, tooling and guidance, and feed lessons back into the CoE's governance model.
• Stay current. Track new models, tools and techniques, test them, and bring forward those that earn a place in our work.

Qualifications

Technical skills

• Strong software engineering in Python or similar, with experience delivering working systems.
• Hands-on experience building with large language models: prompt design, retrieval-augmented generation, tool use and agentic workflows.
• Working knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS preferred) and of data and integration patterns.
• Able to design a solution end to end and explain the trade-offs.

How you work

• Hands on who takes a problem and runs with it. Startup or fast-moving product experience is a strong advantage.
• Naturally curious and quick to learn as the technology changes.
• Clear communicator with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Patient, practical mentor who enjoys helping others improve.

Experience

• Typically 5 to 8 years in software or data engineering, with recent hands-on AI work. Evidence of what you have built matters more than years served.

Helpful extras

• Experience with AWS Bedrock, Anthropic, OpenAI or Azure OpenAI models.
• Public work such as open-source contributions, published projects or talks.

Additional Information

• Share in our success with our Quarterly Performance-Related Profit Share Scheme, where employees collectively benefit from a share of our company's profits.
• Strong Career Progression and mentorship coaching through our Strength in Balance and Leadership schemes with a dedicated quarterly Pathways Career Development programme.
• Flexible/remote working, with flexibility to help achieve a healthy work life balance.
• Financial Wellbeing initiatives including Pension, Private Healthcare Cover, Life Assurance, Financial advice and an Employee Discount scheme.
• Employee Wellbeing schemes including Gym Discounts, Bike to Work, Fitness classes, Mindfulness Workshops, Employee Assistance Programme, generous holiday allowance, enhanced maternity/paternity leave, and special leave policies.
• Educational assistance, incentivised certifications, and accreditations, including AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat.
• Reward schemes including Version 1's Annual Excellence Awards and Call-Out platform.
• Environment, Social and Community First initiatives allow you to get involved in local fundraising and development opportunities.

Version 1 is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace where everyone feels valued and able to thrive. If you need reasonable adjustments at any stage of the process, please contact your recruiter at Version 1.