Head of AI Engineering
3 days ago
Manchester
Head of AI Engineering Permanent - Manchester Hybrid with a focused on-site presence Join a pioneering 5yr+ TechBio company at the intersection of AI, synthetic biology, and industrial biotechnology. You will lead the building of an AI engineering platform connecting computational design, experimental validation, and real-world commercial outcomes. Reporting directly to the CEO, sitting on the management team, and engaging with the Board. This is a hands-on leadership role with genuine scope to shape the company's long-term technical position. The tasks of a Head of AI Engineering will include: • Build & lead the AI engineering team; hiring, coaching, designing, delivering., • Contribute hands-on in coding, architecture, and technical problem-solving., • Define and build the AI platform connecting data, models, workflows, and learning loops., • Design and deploy agentic AI capabilities that improve scientific workflows and platform intelligence., • Build the software foundations for autonomous closed-loop experimentation linking computational design and lab validation., • Partner with leadership to translate challenges into scalable AI systems., • Shape technical strategy, hiring, and engineering standards as company scales. To progress as a successful Head of AI Engineering, you will require: • 5+ years leading engineering, ML, or AI teams at Director or equivalent level., • Deep expertise in AI/ML; model architectures, training, evaluation, and production deployment., • Strong software engineering background building production-grade AI platforms and infrastructure., • Proven experience building and deploying agentic systems into live workflows., • A player-coach approach; equally comfortable writing code, setting architecture, and leading people., • Strong communication skills across technical, scientific, and executives. Highly desirable skills include: • Exposure or understanding of AI and ML in a scientific or biotech environment, • Own eligibility to work in the UK — sponsorship is not available for this role., • Competitive salary plus equity., • Senior leadership role with direct CEO and Board exposure., • The opportunity to build something unique in a well-backed, science-led environment. Keyword terminologyAI Engineering, Machine Learning, Agentic AI, AI Platform, Closed-Loop Experimentation, Autonomous Experimentation, Protein Engineering, Biocatalysis, Computational Biology, Synthetic Biology, Deep Tech, TechBio, Director of Engineering, ML Platform, AI Infrastructure, Lab Automation, Bioinformatics, Player-Coach, Engineering Leadership, AI Agents, LLMs, Python, Numpy, MLOps, Life Sciences AI, Biotechnology.