Principal AI Engineer

At 1st Central everything starts with our people.

As one of the UKs leading motor and home insurers we use smart technology data and great service to make insurance fast fair and simple for over 1.4 million customers. Were proud to create an environment where people feel supported trusted and able to grow -whether thats developing new skills taking on fresh challenges or making a real impact every day. If youre looking for a role where you can make a difference wed love to hear from you.

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Principal AI Engineer to join us as a senior technical authority for AI and Generative AI defining our long-term AI engineering strategy and leading the design of enterprisegrade solutions that deliver safe scalable and highimpact AI across the business.

Youll build secure scalable multiprovider AI platforms leveraging thirdparty capabilities where they add value that minimise vendor lockin and support rapid experimentation across Azure OpenAI and alternative LLM ecosystems. Youll also shape the design of agentic AI systems orchestration layers and integration patterns that support flexible productionready AI solutions at pace.

Working closely with Enterprise Architecture Security Data Platforms and senior business leaders youll ensure all AI solutions are robust compliant and aligned to organisational goals. Youll also provide technical leadership across the engineering community mentoring senior engineers setting technical governance standards and championing responsible and ethical AI practices.

This is a flexible hybrid role with occasional visits to our offices in Salford Quays (Manchester) or Haywards Heath (West Sussex) when needed. We offer excellent flexibility in working patterns along with a supportive peoplefocused culture that were proud of.

Core skills were looking for to succeed in the role:

• Python & Modern AI Framework Expertise: Expertlevel Python development and strong familiarity with modern AI frameworks (e.g. LangChain or equivalent).
• Systems Architecture & Distributed Design: Exceptional system design and architectural reasoning skills particularly for distributed and AIdriven systems.
• Innovation Pragmatism & Operational Awareness: Ability to balance innovation with pragmatism risk and operational constraints.
• Communication Influence & Stakeholder Engagement: Outstanding communication and influencing skills able to engage effectively at engineer architect and executive levels.
• AI Reliability & Governance: Demonstrable leadership in AI Ops including monitoring governance and operational resilience.
• Strategic Thinking with HandsOn Delivery: Strong strategic thinking combined with the ability to remain handson when required.

Whats involved:

• Youll define and own the enterprise AI engineering strategy vision and solution design standards across both custombuilt and integrated AI solutions.
• Youll evaluate select and adopt emerging AI technologies balancing inhouse development with vendor platforms to ensure flexibility and avoid lockin.
• Youll design secure scalable AI platforms and systems spanning Azure OpenAI multiprovider LLMs orchestration layers and enterprise integration patterns.
• Youll establish and govern bestpractice engineering patterns for model integration APIfirst design vector search and deployment of AI services.
• Youll oversee delivery and operationalisation of AI platforms and solutions whether internally engineered or externally sourced ensuring they meet enterprise readiness criteria.
• Youll set and enforce AI engineering governance for model lifecycle management testing validation observability and compliance.
• Youll partner across Enterprise Architecture Security Data Platforms and business teams to ensure solutions align with regulatory security and risk expectations.
• Youll provide senior technical leadership across cloud infrastructure identity networking and security needed to support AI workloads.
• Youll mentor and develop senior engineers fostering communities of practice and uplifting engineering capability and reusable frameworks.
• Youll champion Responsible AI and ensure all AI solutions built or integrated meet ethical fair transparent and secure standards.

Experience & knowledge:

• Extensive experience designing and leading enterprise-scale AI and Generative AI platforms in production environments.
• Deep expertise in cloud-based AI services particularly Azure OpenAI Cognitive Services and advanced RAG architectures
• Proven ability to design API-first microservices-based AI systems integrated into complex enterprise ecosystems.
• Strong background in Azure infrastructure networking identity and security architecture.
• Significant experience with Infrastructure as Code CI/CD and cloud-native deployment strategies.
• Demonstrated leadership in AI Ops / including monitoring governance and operational resilience.
• Broad understanding of adjacent AI disciplines such as NLP Computer Vision and data engineering.
• Prior experience in financial services or insurance sectors advantageous.
• Familiarity with AzureML Databricks related Azure technologies Docker Kubernetes and containerization is advantageous.

Skills:

• Expert-level Python development and strong familiarity with modern AI frameworks (e.g. LangChain or equivalent).
• Exceptional system design and architectural reasoning skills particularly for distributed and AI-driven systems.
• Ability to balance innovation with pragmatism risk and operational constraints.
• Outstanding communication and influencing skills able to engage effectively at engineer architect and executive levels.
• Strong strategic thinking combined with the ability to remain hands-on when required.

Behaviours:

• Embrace embed and incorporate the company values
• Self-motivated and enthusiastic
• An organised and proactive approach
• Strong stakeholder management
• Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team
• A flexible approach and positive attitude
• Strives to drive business improvements to contribute to the success of the business

If youre excited by the idea of shaping meaningful AI solutions and influencing how an organisation embraces intelligent technology this is a role where your impact will truly be felt.

Ready to join us

Were looking for talented people who want to make a real impact for our customers colleagues and business. Apply today and discover where a career at 1st Central could take you.

To find out more about careers at 1st Central take a look here