Senior automation and AI engineer

Role overview

Responsibilities

• check_circle Working with engineering, product, operations and customer-facing teams to uncover inefficient, manual or unclear processes
• check_circle Turning ambiguous business problems into well-designed, scalable automated workflows
• check_circle Choosing the right tool for each problem, from TypeScript or Python to LLMs, agentic systems and low-code platforms
• check_circle Designing, building, testing and operating reliable automation and AI-enabled services
• check_circle Applying appropriate quality gates, guardrails and human oversight to AI-driven workflows
• check_circle Owning your solutions throughout their lifecycle, including documentation, observability, support and continuous improvement
• check_circle Evaluating emerging LLM models, agentic tools and automation approaches based on their practical benefits and trade-offs
• check_circle Sharing your knowledge and helping other engineers and teams adopt effective automation practices

Basic qualifications

• You have strong commercial experience with TypeScript or Python and are willing to learn whichever language is less familiar to you – TypeScript experience is slightly preferred
• You have experience writing or using agentic harnesses for software development and understand how to assess different orchestration approaches
• You understand the current frontier LLM landscape, its applications in software engineering and challenges such as hallucination, prompt injection, privacy, cost and latency
• You’re comfortable choosing the right tool for the job, including low-code platforms such as Zapier or Microsoft Power Platform when custom code isn’t the best answer
• You have an enablement mindset and naturally seek out ambiguity, inefficient processes and opportunities to design better ways of working
• You’re a hands-on builder who wants to understand a problem deeply, build the solution and remain accountable for running and improving it
• You understand how to make automation and AI-enabled systems reliable through testing, observability, validation, guardrails and human-in-the-loop review
• You have experience working with cloud-based systems – AWS, serverless technologies, regulated industries or financial services experience is desirable

Benefits

• check_circle A salary between £75,000 and £90,000 – dependant on experience + reviewed annually
• check_circle 27 days holiday + bank holidays (some can be flexible) + day off on your birthday + three days (full time) per year for Dependant leave
• check_circle Two volunteering days per year
• check_circle Option to work abroad for up to six weeks a year
• check_circle Secclbrate - our recognition programme that offers a mix of flexible rewards including extra pay, additional holiday and increased learning budget
• check_circle Length of service award – one month paid sabbatical at eight years
• check_circle 6% employer pension contribution, and life assurance
• check_circle Private medical insurance with AXA Health
• check_circle Enhanced Parental leave
• check_circle MacBook and up to £500 home office set up budget
• check_circle £750 per person learning budget
• check_circle Health and wellbeing initiatives including free therapy via Wellness Cloud, mental health support via Headspace
• check_circle Strong financial wellbeing focus including access to Octopus Money, Octopus Share Incentive Plan and will writing offering via Octopus Legacy
• check_circle Perkbox – Flexi-points giving you a range of discounts and perks including free weekly coffee, gym and retail discounts
• check_circle Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work and Octopus Electric Vehicle Leasing

About the company