AI Engineer

Build a brand-new AI function from the ground up inside a global, operationally complex consumer business. Genuine greenfield — no legacy estate, no technical debt. Location: Manchester — hybrid, 3 days in office Team: Founding member of a new AI function Experience: 2–6 years applied AI / automation The opportunity You'll work directly with the business and AI Business Analysts to turn real opportunities into working proofs of concept. Where a POC proves out and drives measurable value, it scales into production — and the team scales with it, with growth pencilled in for 2027. The architecture decisions you make in the first few months are what the function is built on. This is a foundations role, not a maintenance one. The role Not a traditional software engineering role. You'll design, build and operate practical AI agents, automations and orchestration across Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry and Claude. This is a sole-builder role: you own delivery end-to-end — architecture, platform choice, build, testing and handover — working across functions, shops, markets and suppliers. You'll be mentored technically by the Automation Manager but work independently as the hands-on architect for the AI agent estate. What you'll do * Work with the business to find high-value AI and automation opportunities, and build working POCs fast to test feasibility and value. * Make and defend the platform call (Copilot Studio vs. Foundry vs. Claude) for each opportunity. * Take proven POCs to production-grade agents, including all required testing and validation. * Build Copilot Studio agents (low-code) and pro-code Foundry agents in Python, Azure Functions and custom workflows. * Develop Power Automate flows with real orchestration — error handling, retries, long-running operations. * Own the architecture of the AI agent estate: retrieval strategy (RAG / live query), eval sets, guardrails, observability and CI/CD. * Document every agent and promotion decision to a handover-ready standard, building cost-effectively to maximise ROI. What you'll bring * 2–6 years in applied AI, software or automation engineering, with a portfolio or real production examples. * A genuine, active interest in AI — already building agents, workflows or tools in your own time. * Architecture-level judgement: able to make and defend design decisions without a peer group to lean on. * Hands-on Copilot Studio and wider Power Platform (Dataverse modelling, security roles). * Python with sound engineering habits (testing, version control, CI/CD) and hands-on Azure, ideally Function Apps. * Practical LLMs in production — prompt orchestration, RAG and output evaluation. * Excellent written communication and structured fault-finding. Nice to have: Azure AI Foundry (Agent Service, Prompt Flow), Azure AI Search, Semantic Kernel / Microsoft Agent Framework, an infrastructure/cloud background, ML/forecasting, and certifications AB-620 or AI-102/103.