Lead Engineer (AI Platform)

Napier AI

Job Location:

Belfast - UK

Monthly Salary: Not Disclosed

Posted on: 7 days ago

Vacancies: 1 Vacancy

Job Summary

Imagine catching criminals before they strikethats exactly what Napiers AI-powered platform does! By analysing transactions and customers in real time Napier AIs technology empowers financial institutions to spot suspicious activity like money laundering and stops it in its tracks.

Napier AIs technology works like a digital detective combining AI with smart analytics to outthink criminals and protect peoples money from becoming criminal proceeds. Its not just about stopping crimeits about making the financial world safer and more trustworthy for everyone.

Collaboration innovation and wonderful people are just some of the reasons to bring your career to Napier. Our culture is shaped by our core values that promote equality creativity and opportunity in everything we do.

After successfully securing PI investment to fuel our ongoing growth and to further invest in our AI products we are currently building out our Tech Hub in Belfast - this is a super exciting time to join Napier in Belfast as we expand.

Overview of the role: Lead Engineer

The Lead Engineer will play a key role in building and shaping a new AI-focused engineering capability within Napier based in Belfast.

This is a hands-on leadership role within a smaller high-impact team focused on extending Napiers AI functionality and applying AI and machine learning models to detect and prevent financial crime.

You will be responsible for both contributing directly to the development of AI-driven systems and leading technical direction within the team. This role offers an opportunity to build something from the ground up in a relatively greenfield environment helping define the technical approach tooling and engineering practices as the team grows.

Depending on experience the role can flex between a strong Technical Lead or a Team Lead combining hands-on engineering with leadership responsibility.

Your day to day: Lead Engineer

Designing and implementing AI-driven features and services within Napiers platform
Contributing hands-on to development including coding debugging and testing
Leading or mentoring a small team of engineers supporting their growth and output
Working closely with Product Architecture and Data teams to translate AI use cases into production systems
Helping define and evolve engineering standards tooling and development practices within the AI team
Supporting integration of AI/ML models into scalable production-grade systems
Diagnosing and resolving functional and performance/scalability issues
Participating in technology selection and architectural decisions
Supporting recruitment and onboarding of new team members as required
Providing input on resourcing decisions and team growth

Do you have what it takes

Knowledge/experience:

At least 57 years of commercial experience in a senior or lead engineering role
Strong experience building and delivering production-grade systems in a product or SaaS environment
Experience working in smaller companies or teams with a pragmatic and adaptable approach
Experience leading engineers or acting in a technical leadership capacity
Experience working in Agile delivery environments with a continuous improvement mindset
Exposure to AI/ML systems data-driven platforms or analytics products
Understanding of how to integrate models or data-driven features into production systems
Knowledge of DevOps and modern software engineering practices

Skills:
These skills are essential to be successful in this role

Strong hands-on programming experience in Go or Python (experience in both is beneficial)
Experience building distributed microservice-based systems
Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS Azure or GCP)
Understanding of containerisation and orchestration (Docker Kubernetes)
Experience with data pipelines streaming technologies or event-driven systems (e.g. Kafka beneficial)
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to adapt quickly to changing requirements
Ability to balance hands-on development with technical leadership responsibilities
Collaborative team player with strong communication and stakeholder management skills
Comfortable working in evolving environments and helping shape direction and structure

Wed be thrilled if you also have experience with and are keen to grow your skills in some of these other areas:

Machine learning frameworks or AI model development
Financial crime fraud or risk-related domains
Data processing and analytics platforms
Performance engineering and scalability optimisation
Observability tools such as Grafana and Prometheus
Exposure to modern front-end technologies (React Angular)
Experience working with distributed or remote teams

Why Napier

Comprehensive private healthcare through AXA covering optical audio & dental.
25 days of annual leave bank holidays your birthday and a wellness day
Dedicated pension plan through Aviva
Life Insurance 4x your annual salary
Enhanced Maternity & Paternity leave
Income protections policy
Work from anywhere for up to 1 month
Access to our employee wellbeing programme.
Gym membership discounts.
Flexibility in work schedules and locations ensuring a work-life balance.
- This role can be fulfilled either with a hybrid approach or fully in-office depending on your preference.
An open and flexible culture that allows you to work in the best way for you.

Please note applicants must have the right to work in the United Kingdom. We are unable to offer sponsorship or take over sponsorship of employment visas at this time.

Required Experience: