2 months ago
London, United KingdomStaff+
Responsibilities
- Lead the technical direction and architecture of complex client programmes across MACH architectures and production Generative AI.
- Design, build, review, deploy, and operate enterprise-grade systems, with approximately 65–70% of time spent on hands-on engineering delivery.
- Own architecture decisions spanning AI experiences, APIs, cloud infrastructure, deployment, operational reliability, and enterprise integrations.
- Design and implement retrieval pipelines, agent orchestration, evaluation frameworks, model fine-tuning, governance, observability, and cost-value analysis.
- Bridge design intent to production applications through design systems, design-to-code workflows, UI development, and Generative AI tooling.
- Develop backend and platform services, distributed systems, event-driven workflows, RESTful and GraphQL APIs, and infrastructure-as-code pipelines.
- Mentor engineers, guide cross-discipline and distributed engineering squads, and explain technical decisions to clients and non-technical stakeholders.
- Contribute to technical discovery and occasionally support pre-sales scoping or technical pitches.
Requirements
- At least three years of Generative AI experience and delivery of at least one AI capability into a live enterprise environment beyond prototypes or proofs of concept.
- At least eight years designing and delivering MACH-based enterprise platforms.
- Production experience with RAG, GraphRAG, agent orchestration, retrieval pipelines, evaluation, governance, reliability, and AI cost management.
- Hands-on experience with Vercel AI SDK, Vercel AI Cloud, and agentic cloud patterns.
- Deep experience with GCP and Vertex AI and Vercel AI Cloud, or equivalent AWS and Microsoft Azure capabilities.
- Experience customizing and fine-tuning existing models, including data preparation, evaluation, versioning, deployment, governance, cost, and reliability considerations.
- Advanced design and implementation experience with composable, cloud-native, headless, API-first, distributed, and event-driven architectures.
- Advanced server-side development and platform engineering, with Python recommended and additional programming languages beneficial.
- Experience with RESTful and GraphQL APIs, contract-first design, API versioning, gateway patterns, SaaS, CMS, DXP, and MarTech integrations.
- Experience with design systems and design-to-code workflows; Figma, Cursor, Claude, and Vercel v0 experience is advantageous.
- Experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Next.js, React, and optionally SwiftUI, Kotlin, Flutter, or React Native.
- Experience with infrastructure as code, CI/CD, automated testing and deployment, security, performance, reliability, and maintainability.
- Experience integrating headless CMS platforms such as Contentful, Sanity, or ContentStack.
- Senior engineering, platform, or architecture background at Principal, Staff, or equivalent depth, with a builder-first and production-focused approach.
- Strong written and verbal communication, attention to detail, analytical thinking, and ability to communicate complex technical decisions to varied audiences.
Benefits
- Hybrid working environment based in London at the Farringdon office, including required in-office days.
- Collaboration with global studios, partners, and cross-discipline engineering teams.
- Access to AKQA's range of employee benefits, with details provided through the company's benefits resource.
- Equal opportunity workplace with a culture focused on respect, inclusion, creativity, collaboration, and connection.
Tech Stack
AWSAzureCSSFlutterGitHub ActionsGoogle Cloud PlatformHTMLJavaScriptKotlinNetlifyNext.jsPythonReactReact NativeSwiftUITerraformVercel
Categories
About AKQA
AKQA is a design and innovation agency that builds digital products, services, and brand experiences for consumer and enterprise clients across sectors such as retail, automotive, and finance. The company operates on a services and consulting model spanning strategy, design, engineering, data, and media. Founded in 1994 and headquartered in London, AKQA is part of WPP and maintains studios across dozens of cities worldwide.