Principal AI/ML Manager

Collinson is the global, privately‑owned company dedicated to helping the world to travel with ease and confidence. The group offers a unique blend of industry and sector specialists who together provide market‑leading airport experiences, loyalty and customer engagement, and insurance solutions for over 400 million consumers. Collinson is the operator of Priority Pass, the world’s original and leading airport experiences programme. Travellers can access a network of 1,500+ lounges and travel experiences, including dining, retail, sleep and spa, in over 650 airports in 148 countries, helping to elevate the journey into something special. We work with the world’s leading payment networks, over 1,400 banks, 90 airlines and 20 hotel groups worldwide. We have been bringing innovation to the market since inception – from launching the first independent global VIP lounge access Programme, Priority Pass to being the first to sell direct travel insurance in the UK through Columbus Direct and creating the first loyalty agency of its kind in the travel sector with ICLP. Today we still invest heavily in innovation to ensure that we continue to deliver superior customer experiences. Key clients include Mastercard, American Express, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, LATAM, Flying Blue, Accor, EasyJet, HSBC, Chase, HDFC. Our mission is focused on doing good beyond profit, which for us means we seek out opportunities for our people to share in our success and that we give back to the communities and people within which we work. Never short of ambition, the success of our business is delivered through the diverse and talented team of over 2,200 global colleagues. Purpose of the job Collinson’s Travel Experience division has an ambitious roadmap to deliver customer centric global solutions with consideration for regional difference. We are seeking a Principal AI/ML Engineer to architect, build, and operationalise the next generation of AI solutions at Collinson. This role will combine deep technical engineering expertise with strategic leadership to ensure AI is delivered at scale, with robustness, transparency, and measurable business impact. As the technical authority in AI engineering, you will own the design and delivery of production‑grade AI/ML systems, lead best practices in automation and observability, and help Collinson establish a trusted, enterprise‑ready AI platform. The Principal AI/ML Engineer will work closely with the Head of AI Labs to design and operationalise advanced AI solutions, ensuring Collinson’s AI initiatives deliver measurable business impact. Key Responsibilities Lead the design and delivery of end‑to‑end AI/ML pipelines, ensuring solutions are scalable, resilient, and aligned with business objectives. Develop and deploy advanced ML, DL, and LLM models, including RAG pipelines, agentic AI architectures, and evaluation frameworks such as LLM‑as‑a‑Judge. Integrate AI capabilities into enterprise platforms and products in a governed, model‑agnostic, and future‑proof manner. Implement monitoring and observability to manage drift, bias, fairness, and performance, with clear processes for escalation and retraining. Establish guardrails for responsible AI adoption, covering explainability, bias detection, security, and compliance. Mentor and guide engineers to strengthen expertise in ML engineering, orchestration frameworks, and modern AI practices. Communicate AI/ML system behaviours, risks, and outcomes effectively to technical and non‑technical stakeholders. Collaborate with the Head of AI Labs to translate AI research and strategy into production‑grade engineering solutions. Knowledge, skills, and experience required Education Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related field. PhD in a relevant discipline is advantageous but not required. Skills and Experience Proven ability to design and productionise retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and agentic AI architectures, with practical use of Model Context Protocol (MCP) and evaluation frameworks such as LLM‑as‑a‑Judge. Hands‑on experience building agent‑based AI solutions using orchestration frameworks (e.g. LangChain, Crew AI, etc), deployed in production environments. Expert programming skills in Python, with strong engineering discipline in testing, optimisation, CI/CD, and code quality; proficiency in TypeScript (good to have) and working knowledge of SQL for data integration. Demonstrated success in developing, fine‑tuning, and deploying ML/DL models using PyTorch and TensorFlow, and operationalising LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic) into customer-facing applications. Experience integrating and scaling vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus) in live systems to support retrieval and reasoning workloads. Expertise in cloud‑native AI engineering, with deep delivery experience in AWS and working knowledge of Azure; ability to design distributed, fault‑tolerant AI systems in cloud environments. Demonstrated capability to embed governance, privacy, security, and compliance controls directly into AI systems without slowing innovation. Leadership experience in mentoring engineering teams, setting technical direction, and aligning AI delivery with business strategy. Proven ability to manage competing priorities and deliver robust, scalable, and ethical AI/ML solutions under tight timelines. Track record of delivering enterprise‑ready AI services, agents, and APIs that are adopted and reused across multiple business functions. Ongoing commitment to staying ahead of LLM, generative AI, and agent‑based innovations and translating them into practical enterprise use cases. Person Specification Self‑motivator with a desire to learn new skills and embrace new technologies in a constantly changing technology landscape. Ability to thrive in a fast‑moving environment and drive innovation that aligns with business goals. Ability to show initiative, innovation and work independently when required. Ability to work at pace and tackle project challenges in a collegiate, collaborative way. Goal and outcome orientated with a strong focus on delivering measurable business results. Thoroughness and attention to detail ensuring high‑quality deliverables that drive business value. Excellent communication skills (ability to present, inform and guide others). Ability to bridge communications between technical and business focussed groups. Comfortable working with people at all levels in an organisation. Collinson is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes differences in all their forms including: colour, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, neurodivergence, family status, age, individuals with disabilities and people from all backgrounds, cultures and experiences as we strongly believe this contributes to our on‑going success. In your application, please feel free to note which pronouns you use (For example - she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs, etc). If you need any extra support throughout the interview process, then please email us at ukrecruitment@collinsongroup.com. #J-18808-Ljbffr