Lead AI Engineer - Enterprise AI Products

Salary: £62,000 - 102,000 per year

Requirements:

• Proven experience as a Senior Developer, Technical Lead, Lead Engineer or in a similar senior engineering role.
• Strong expertise in object-oriented programming, software architecture and technical design.
• Strong hands-on development experience in Python and/or Java; experience with both is highly desirable.
• Experience with Generative AI and AI Agents, ideally including Google ADK.
• Practical experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP) and AI/data/service integration is highly desirable.
• Strong understanding of REST APIs, networking, databases and CLI tooling, with Postgres/Oracle experience preferred.
• Experience with CI/CD and modern DevOps tooling such as Jenkins, uDeploy, Tekton, Harness or equivalent.
• Demonstrable ability to shape technical strategy and roadmaps and influence senior stakeholders.
• Genuine interest in understanding business problems and working closely with non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong problem-solving, communication and presentation skills, with confidence to engage directly with business and technology leaders.
• Experience providing technical leadership, mentoring or line management within software engineering teams.
• Desirable: experience with Neo4j or other graph databases, UX/front-end development, and broader AI platform technologies.
• Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related discipline preferred; graduate-level or continuing education is a plus.

Responsibilities:

• Own and lead technical components end-to-end, ensuring alignment with business and product objectives.
• Work directly with senior business and technology stakeholders to understand problems and translate them into technical solutions.
• Shape product roadmaps, technical strategy and priorities alongside the team lead and wider stakeholders.
• Design, develop and implement scalable, production-quality solutions using sound engineering and architectural principles.
• Build and develop AI solutions, including Generative AI and Agentic AI using Google ADK.
• Design, develop and test AI Agents and work with Model Context Protocol (MCP) and MCP servers.
• Write high-quality code in Python and/or Java, working across modern AI and platform technologies.
• Provide technical leadership, mentoring and guidance to other engineers and contribute to team development.
• Drive engineering quality through code reviews, technical design reviews, testing and robust CI/CD practices.
• Ensure solutions meet Citis risk, security and compliance requirements while integrating effectively with wider technology platforms.

Technologies:

• Agentic AI
• AI
• AI Agents
• CI/CD
• DevOps
• Support
• Java
• Jenkins
• MCP
• Neo4J
• Oracle
• Python
• REST
• Security
• UX UI Design

More:

We are Citis Enterprise AI Products team, a small, high-impact global team building innovative AI solutions for the wider bank. We are at the forefront of Agentic AI, developing capabilities that enable data sharing across agent ecosystems, support new Agentic AI use cases and shape modern AI architecture through purpose-built tooling. This is a senior Lead AI Engineer role based in London, where you will work in a deliberately flat team with significant ownership and influence, helping shape the platform strategy and roadmap while gaining exposure to Generative AI, AI Agents and modern AI engineering in a fast-moving environment. We offer a business casual workplace with a hybrid working model of up to 2 days working at home per week, a competitive base salary reviewed annually, and benefits including 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays, a discretionary annual performance bonus, private medical care and life insurance, an employee assistance program, a pension plan, paid parental leave, and special discounts for employees, family and friends. We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels comfortable coming to work as their whole self, every day.

last updated 36 week of 2026