AI Technical Lead

We are currently seeking an experienced AI Engineering Tech Lead for an initial 6-month contract with a global energy company, supporting its Trading & Shipping business.

This is an exciting contract opportunity for a hands-on AI engineering professional to lead the rapid development and delivery of AI proof of concepts, working directly with trading teams to solve real commercial and operational challenges.

The successful contractor will take ownership of a portfolio of AI initiatives, driving projects from initial requirements and technical design through to proof of concept, evaluation and production deployment where business value has been demonstrated.

We are looking for someone who can hit the ground running, bring strong technical leadership and remain hands-on with development, rather than someone focused purely on strategy or programme management., * Take ownership of a portfolio of AI proof of concepts across trading, shipping and operations.

• Work directly with traders, analysts and business stakeholders to identify opportunities and translate business requirements into technical solutions.
• Lead the hands-on development of AI applications using Python, LLMs, RAG, agentic workflows and relevant AI platforms.
• Rapidly prototype, test and evaluate solutions, demonstrating measurable commercial value and making clear recommendations on whether initiatives should be scaled or stopped.
• Develop integrations with internal data sources, market data platforms and trading systems.
• Establish and maintain engineering standards covering code quality, testing, model evaluation, monitoring and deployment.
• Drive successful proofs of concept towards production, working alongside business owners, digital and platform teams.
• Ensure solutions comply with data security, model governance, risk, compliance and cyber requirements.
• Provide technical leadership to a small engineering team and coordinate external technology partners where required.
• Report on delivery progress, technical outcomes and business value to senior stakeholders.

• 8+ years’ experience in software engineering or AI engineering, with previous technical leadership experience.
• Strong hands-on Python development and production software engineering experience.
• Proven experience building and deploying LLM-powered applications, including prompt engineering, RAG, tool use and agentic AI workflows.
• Experience working with cloud platforms, ideally Azure or AWS, including their AI services.
• Strong engineering practices covering Git, testing, CI/CD and containerisation.
• Good data engineering experience, including SQL, APIs, data pipelines and time-series data.
• Demonstrable experience taking AI prototypes and PoCs through to live production environments.
• Experience working directly with front-office, commercial or business stakeholders.
• Strong quantitative understanding, with the ability to engage in discussions around pricing, P&L, risk and market fundamentals.
• Ability to operate independently, make technical decisions and deliver at pace within a time-constrained contract assignment.

Desirable Experience

• Experience within energy, commodities, oil and gas, shipping or financial trading.
• Quantitative development or strats experience within a trading house, investment bank or hedge fund.
• Familiarity with trading and risk systems such as Endur or Allegro.
• Experience working with market data platforms and commodity datasets.
• Knowledge of agentic AI frameworks and orchestration tools.
• Experience delivering technology within large, regulated organisations.
• Previous experience leading engineering teams and managing third-party delivery partners.