Senior / Lead AI Engineer
OchoX opportunity, Belfast (hybrid)
- Senior / Lead level, founding AI hire in Northern Ireland
- Hybrid working, 3 days in a state of the art Belfast office
- Highly competitive salary, meaningful equity and market leading benefits
- Build AI products from scratch (not API wrappers): RAG, model training, LLMs on GCP
- Build and lead a brand new AI team for a fast growing SaaS security business
About the company
Our client is a fast growing SaaS security organisation specialising in AI driven automation and large scale enterprise software quality platforms. Their products are used by global brands and they are now expanding their footprint into Northern Ireland with a brand new, AI focused engineering team. This is an OchoX opportunity for someone who wants to shape that team from the ground up.
The role
This is a founding hire for an entrepreneurial engineer who lives at the intersection of product development and AI architecture. You will design adaptive intelligence systems from the ground up, going well beyond simple integrations to ship truly autonomous security and automation solutions at enterprise scale. Working alongside Research and DevOps, you will own architectural decisions, productionise new AI capabilities and help build a high calibre team here in NI. This will suit a builder who has shipped AI powered products from a blank canvas, understands model training and thrives on solving complex distributed systems challenges.
Key responsibilities
- Lead technical initiatives and architectural decisions for AI driven automation
- Design and build autonomous agents that execute complex security and quality workflows end to end
- Architect AI powered scanning that considers deployment context, IAM roles, security groups and runtime behaviour to eliminate false positives
- Build the internal AI platform covering RAG, model training and evaluations to enable safe, scalable features
- Oversee adaptive models that learn from customer specific environments and generate high signal, personalised insights
- Productionise AI capabilities in a modern cloud native environment alongside Research and DevOps
- Identify bottlenecks and continuously optimise backend systems for massive automation workloads
- Help build, hire and lead a new AI engineering team in Northern Ireland
What you will need
Essential
- 2+ years specifically in ML / AI engineering with a track record of shipping AI powered products
- Deep hands on experience with RAG, model training, AI architecture and LLM integration
- Proven ability to design AI solutions from a blank canvas, not just wrapping existing APIs
- Strong cloud native experience with GCP (preferred), Docker and Kubernetes
- Entrepreneurial mindset and comfort with the ambiguity of greenfield work
- Right to work in the UK and willingness to work hybrid from Belfast (3 days on site)
Nice to have
- Prior experience in security, automation or enterprise quality platforms
- Track record of building or leading small, high performing engineering teams
Why apply?
- Highly competitive salary with meaningful equity in a rapidly scaling business
- Market leading benefits package including private healthcare, pension and generous annual leave
- Hybrid working, 3 days in a state of the art Belfast office
- Founding influence over architecture and product direction
- High impact work shipping AI products used by global brands
- The opportunity to build and lead a brand new AI team in Northern Ireland
- Clear progression path as the team and product scale
How to apply
If you are an entrepreneurial AI engineer with a passion for building AI products from scratch, please apply via the link. For an informal chat first, reach out to Phil Gamble directly on LinkedIn or WhatsApp.
About Phil Gamble
Phil has over 21 years of experience recruiting in global software engineering markets. His relationship driven approach ensures you are supported throughout the entire process, focused on your career goals rather than simply filling a vacancy.