AI Architect / Principal AI Engineer

Role: Principal AI Engineer - Lead Colleague AI Transformation (Financial Services) Location: Central London, Full Time, Hybrid working 2/3 times per week from the office, the rest from home Start Date: ASAP End Date: 6 Months initially Daily Rate: Very competitive day rate, Inside IR35 Payroll provider – Rockford Payroll Info for Contingent Workers – Rockford Pay Overall Purpose of the Role We are seeking a hands-on Principal AI Engineer to act as the technical right hand for the Automation \& AI Practice, accelerating the Colleague AI agenda. This pivotal role will transition the organisation from isolated AI experiments to a fully resourced, governed, and scalable AI delivery capability. You will seed in-house expertise to reduce vendor dependency, mitigate key person risk, and govern shadow AI usage across the business. Key Responsibilities * Provide hands-on technical leadership across Colleague AI initiatives including Sierra PoC and Claude roll-out, owning architecture and design. * Drive the build of agentic AI solutions for Tribeless colleagues. * Consult on the broader Colleague AI backlog (complaint triage, helpdesk assistant, inbox routing, QA/QC), ensuring solutions are fit for purpose, secure, low risk, and cost-efficient amid consumption-based AI pricing. * Define and embed AI engineering standards, reference architectures, and reusable patterns, collaborating with infrastructure teams to govern shadow AI usage. * Lead AI literacy and enablement across Digital and the wider business. * Mentor and uplift the Automation Practice team to diffuse AI capability and support transition to a permanent in-house AI Engineering Manager. * Represent the Automation \& AI Practice in cross-functional forums, translating AI strategy into delivery roadmaps and measurable outcomes. Skills \& Experience Required * Deep, hands-on technical leadership experience at Principal/Lead level. * Strong expertise in Generative AI, LLMs, agentic architectures, and multi-agent systems with proven production delivery in regulated environments (FS preferred). * Proven experience building agentic solutions using Microsoft Copilot Studio/Foundry, AWS Bedrock/AgentCore, and frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, Strands. * Comfortable across Microsoft and AWS cloud ecosystems, including LLM gateway/Bedrock patterns, data residency, SSO/OIDC federation, and cost controls. * Experience with Claude/Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft Copilot families, including MCP, connectors, skills, and trade-offs. * Strong understanding of AI testing disciplines (accuracy, hallucination, bias, prompt evaluations) and AI governance/risk (DPIA, data classification, FCA considerations). * Excellent stakeholder management skills, able to engage from board-level to engineer-level. * Mentorship and capability-building mindset to strengthen the team and avoid key-person dependency. Initial Areas of Focus \& Benefits * Sierra PoC – enhancing client NPS, helpdesk demand deflection, and colleague efficiencies. * Claude Roll-out – boosting colleague productivity. * AI Enablement – improving AI literacy and adoption across the business. * AI Citizen Development Framework – accelerating solution time to market and reducing digital dependency. * Copilot Continuous Improvement – driving ongoing colleague productivity gains. If you are a visionary AI leader ready to shape the AI future and build sustainable, scalable AI capabilities, we want to hear from you.