Lead AI Developer

Lead AI Engineer Location: Slough (Hybrid, two days per week in the office) Salary: £75,000 to £100,000 plus benefits Type: Full time About the Organisation We are developing an advanced AI driven insight and decision platform used within industrial and manufacturing environments. The platform connects to maintenance, inventory and procurement systems and is designed to turn complex operational data into predictive insight and automated decision making. Our aim is to help factories and large operational teams move from manual processes to intelligent and automated workflows. The Opportunity We are looking for a Lead AI Engineer to take ownership of the AI layer of the platform. This is a greenfield role where you will design and deliver intelligent agents, retrieval systems, predictive models and autonomous decision workflows that operate inside a live SaaS product used by enterprise customers. The work involves production level engineering and the introduction of new AI capabilities that help customers optimise stock, reduce costs and automate routine procurement activity. A key focus of the role is building agent driven ordering systems. This includes developing AI agents that can gather price data from public sources, compare supplier options, validate stock requirements and place orders on behalf of users with the correct safety checks and approval flows. Key Responsibilities Design and build AI powered features including intelligent search, agent driven ordering, predictive stock recommendations and automated procurement workflows Develop autonomous agents that can collect price data, assess supplier choices and initiate or complete ordering actions through APIs or connected systems Build retrieval augmented generation pipelines and vector search capabilities to support accurate and grounded decision making Integrate AI functionality with an existing platform built on .NET, React and Azure Create and maintain data pipelines for maintenance, inventory, supplier and operational data Deliver production ready agents, models and AI services with strong engineering standards Collaborate with software engineers to ensure performance, security and reliability across all AI components Introduce new tools, frameworks and approaches to advance the platform’s AI capability Support mentoring and team growth as the AI function expands About You You are a hands on AI Engineer with proven experience delivering production ready AI systems. You can design and deploy multi step agent workflows, retrieval systems and predictive models that solve real operational problems. You are comfortable working across Python, cloud services and integrated software stacks and you enjoy shaping technical direction in a fast moving product environment. Essential Experience: Strong Python engineering skills Experience with agent and workflow frameworks such as LangChain or LangGraph Proven experience building retrieval augmented generation systems and vector search architectures Ability to build autonomous agents that interact with APIs, fetch public data and trigger external actions Experience deploying AI solutions on Azure Strong understanding of MLOps, data engineering and model lifecycle management Experience embedding AI features into a SaaS or operational technology platform Experience working in the manufacturing industry or with manufacturing, supply chain or inventory systems is highly desirable What We Offer Ownership of the AI direction for a rapidly developing platform A supportive environment for experimentation and technical autonomy Work that delivers real impact in industrial and manufacturing settings Hybrid working and a competitive salary with benefits If you want to build practical AI that powers real world operational and procurement automation, we would like to hear from you.