Lead AI Integration Engineer

Lead AI Integration Engineer (MONY Labs) Location: London or Manchester Role Overview This role is sat within MONY Labs (Big/Little Dipper) As Lead Engineer, you will provide day-to-day technical leadership for the team, ensuring high-quality engineering practices, effective technical decision-making, and predictable delivery of software and services within the team's ownership. You will remain hands-on, contributing directly to the codebase while supporting and developing engineering capability across the team. Colleagues are expected to meet all Senior Developer expectations, with those responsibilities listed in Confluence. Key Responsibilities ------------------------ Technical Delivery Leadership Story Refinement \& Technical Delivery Planning * Lead the refinement of features and user stories into clear, actionable technical activities. * Ensure the team has a shared understanding of implementation approaches, dependencies and delivery sequencing. * Support effective estimation and planning by ensuring technical work is appropriately scoped and trackable through to completion. * Work closely with Product and Engineering colleagues to maintain delivery clarity and confidence. Hands-On Technical Contribution * Actively contribute to the development, maintenance and support of software within the team's domain. * Maintain a deep understanding of the team's services, systems and operational landscape. * Use hands-on engineering involvement to support technical decisions, remove delivery blockers and provide practical coaching to engineers. * Lead by example through consistent delivery of high-quality, maintainable software. Engineering Standards \& Quality * Ensure engineers within the team adhere to agreed software engineering standards, principles and best practices. * Promote maintainable, scalable and well-designed solutions through effective design review and implementation guidance. * Champion quality as a shared engineering responsibility, ensuring appropriate testing, validation and operational readiness are built into delivery practices. * Reinforce the adoption of sound software design principles and sustainable engineering practices. * Model high standards of technical excellence, professionalism, accountability and constructive challenge. * Foster a culture of continuous technical improvement and learning. Technical Decision Making * Lead technical decision-making within the team's area of ownership. * Ensure decisions are well-reasoned, appropriately documented and aligned with agreed architectural direction. * Maintain awareness of wider engineering, architectural and domain strategy to ensure local decisions support broader organisational goals. * Recognise when decisions may have cross-team, domain or architectural impact and engage Principal Engineers and wider engineering forums where appropriate. * Establish clear and transparent decision-making practices that build confidence and alignment across the team. Team Leadership \& Delivery ------------------------------- Impediment Removal * Proactively identify and remove technical impediments that impact delivery. * Escalate structural, cross-team or external blockers when required and ensure they are actively managed through to resolution. * Enable engineers to focus on delivery by reducing friction and improving team effectiveness. Delivery Flow \& Visibility * Lead the operation and maintenance of the team's delivery processes and tracking tools. * Ensure work is visible, well-managed and clearly communicated from inception through to release. * Drive continuous improvement in delivery practices to support efficiency, predictability and transparency. * Provide clear visibility of delivery progress, risks and dependencies to stakeholders where appropriate. Service Ownership \& Operational Excellence ----------------------------------------------- Service Ownership \& Operational Health * Promote a strong "you build it, you run it" culture across the team. * Ensure services within the team's ownership remain reliable, maintainable and safe to evolve. * Drive visibility of service health, operational performance and reliability metrics. * Maintain transparency around technical debt, legacy constraints and operational risks, ensuring they are understood and appropriately prioritised. * Support engineers in taking accountability for the long-term health of the systems they deliver. Operability \& Cost of Ownership Management * Ensure operability requirements such as CI/CD improvements, platform maintenance, security updates and technical debt are visible and appropriately tracked. * Clearly articulate the risks and long-term costs associated with deferring maintenance or technical investment. * Partner with Product colleagues to achieve an appropriate balance between feature delivery, reliability and sustainability. * Escalate broader architectural or systemic concerns where necessary. Technical Coaching \& Capability Development ------------------------------------------------ * Provide ongoing technical coaching and mentoring to engineers within the team. * Strengthen engineering capability through pairing, code reviews, technical discussions and practical guidance. * Support the development of strong design judgement, problem-solving capability and ownership mindset across the team. * Contribute to hiring activities, including technical interviews and engineering assessments. * Help build a high-performing engineering culture through knowledge sharing and professional development. Collaborative Culture ------------------------- * Create an environment where constructive technical discussion is encouraged and valued. * Foster psychological safety, ensuring engineers feel comfortable raising concerns, questioning assumptions and challenging ideas respectfully. * Encourage shared ownership, accountability and collaborative problem-solving. * Promote healthy engineering debates focused on achieving the best outcomes for customers, colleagues and the business. What Success Looks Like --------------------------- A successful Lead Engineer: * Provides clear technical leadership while remaining an active contributor. * Enables predictable and sustainable delivery within the team's domain. * Maintains high engineering standards and quality practices. * Builds trust through sound technical judgement and transparent decision-making. * Coaches and develops engineers, improving technical capability across the team. * Ensures services remain reliable, operable and fit for future growth. * Creates an environment where teams collaborate effectively and continuously improve. Please note: You can find all responsibilities of a Lead Engineer in Confluence. All core Senior Developer responsibilities and expectations continue to apply (and again, can be found in Confluence).