Principal Engineer (Gen AI and MACH Architecture)

Overview

In this Principal Engineer (Tech Lead) role, you will shape and ship enterprise-grade systems within AKQA’s London Tech team, balancing hands-on delivery with technical leadership. You’ll own architecture decisions for MACH-based programs and production Generative AI initiatives, guiding design-to-code workflows and cloud infrastructure. You’ll mentor engineers and ensure reliable production outcomes, not just proposals. This is a technologist-first position in a collaborative, meritocratic culture with a strong production and delivery focus.

Pay / Benefits

• hybrid working
• in-office days
• accommodations available on request
• collaborative culture
• opportunity to work with cutting-edge AI tech

Responsibilities

• Design, build and ship enterprise systems with majority hands-on delivery
• Own architecture decisions across MACH and production Generative AI projects
• Lead technical direction, mentor engineers and review production code
• Coordinate design-to-code workflows, API contracts, and cloud deployment
• Collaborate with Technical Managers and cross-discipline squads
• Support pre-sales technical pitches when needed
• Ensure governance, observability, and operational reliability at scale

Key requirements

• Minimum three years’ experience with Generative AI in production
• Hands-on experience with architectures for intelligent experiences (RAG, GraphRAG, agent orchestration)
• Proficiency with Vercel AI SDK, Vercel AI Cloud, and agent patterns
• Experience across cloud services (GCP, AWS, Azure) and MACH platforms
• Strong backend/platform engineering skills (Python preferred) and API design
• Experience with Terraform and CI/CD pipelines
• Front-end integration literacy (HTML, CSS, JS, React) and familiarity with design-to-code tooling

• strong communication to non-technical audiences
• proactive self-starter with attention to detail
• collaborative and solutions-focused
• Generative AI in production
• GCP, Vercel, AWS, Azure cloud platforms
• RAG, GraphRAG, agent orchestration

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