Job Title: Senior AI Engineer - Centre of Excellence

Location: Home-based with travel to client site or Columbus offices as required

Salary: Negotiable (We aim to improve your current package)

Bonus: Yes

Holiday: 25 Days, Plus Bank Holidays (Increasing with Service)

Medical Insurance: Yes (terms apply) plus additional Health Cashback Plan

Hours: Full time (36.5 hpw)

Travel/Expenses: A car is required for travel to client sites - expensed at 55p per mile from home address (excluding travel to any Columbus Office within 35mi)

THRIVE, GROW and SHAPE THE FUTURE

People always come first at Columbus. We’re a global digital consultancy with a local presence, helping businesses transform and thrive through technology, data, and human insight. Just as importantly, we’re a workplace where careers are nurtured, and development is supported through clear, structured career paths.

Our culture is built on trust, collaboration, curiosity, and a shared commitment to delivering customer success. Whether you're an experienced professional or just starting out, you’ll find the freedom to explore ideas, challenge convention, and shape your own path.

Diversity and Inclusion are close to our hearts.

By joining our team, you will be part of a supportive network that values your voice, respects your ideas, and promotes a healthy work-life balance. Our average length of service in the UK is 8 years, as we are committed to cultivating an inclusive workplace culture that celebrates and supports career growth and advancement in becoming a Trusted Advisor. We provide equal opportunities for everyone, ensuring a level playing field for all candidates. We actively encourage applications from all backgrounds to apply for positions across our organisation, and in return, we will give you the tools and support to Thrive with us, Grow your Skillsets, and be empowered to Shape the Future.

About this role

Enterprise software is going through its biggest shift in decades. Applications are moving from deterministic workflows to intelligent, agentic systems that understand context, remember preferences, and act on behalf of users. This isn’t a future prediction, it's happening now, and Columbus is building at the frontier of it.

We're hiring a Senior AI Engineer to become a key part of our Group AI team. In this role, you'll help design and build the next generation of AI-powered systems that will transform how thousands of people work across the Nordics and beyond. You'll work directly with the VP Group AI. No layers. No committees. You build, you ship, you learn.

We're looking for a senior engineer who can operate across the full AI stack, from application design and intelligent agents to enterprise integrations, data platforms, and AI infrastructure. You combine strategic thinking with hands-on execution and thrive in an environment where you can influence both architecture and implementation.

This is not a consulting engagement or a proof-of-concept. It's production engineering at enterprise scale, on the Microsoft platform, using the most advanced AI models available today.

Travel and Hybrid Working

We have an environment that gives you the flexibility to achieve an effective work-life balance for you and your family, whether you want to work from home or at one of our luxury Cubo offices around the UK.

We continue to offer our customers onsite consultancy time if requested, so flexibility around travel and overnight stays is expected, depending on the project requirements. Onsite time is planned ahead of time, within 2-week blocks, so you know well in advance where you will be working.

We encourage those in customer-facing roles to aim to come into the office at least once a month, and also for team meetings and client meetings; however, you can work from Nottingham HQ or any Cubo office regularly if you prefer, whichever suits you.

What you will bring

We are looking for someone who has:

Strong expertise in LLM application design, including prompt engineering, agent frameworks, tool integration, and evaluation methodologies.

A solid understanding of how data platforms and governance enable AI-driven insights and intelligent systems.

Experience building scalable, production-grade AI solutions, with focus on context management, performance optimisation, observability, and cost control.

Proven ability to design and implement agentic and multi-agent architectures in enterprise environments.

Hands-on experience with Microsoft 365 technologies, including Graph, Teams, SharePoint, and cloud-native platforms such as Azure.

Deep knowledge of retrieval systems, vector databases, embeddings, document processing, and RAG architectures.

Experience building robust event-driven and API-first systems with strong focus on security, compliance, and enterprise-grade reliability.

Strong understanding of AI Security, Responsible AI, and AI Governance principles.

The ability to move confidently between AI applications, integrations, infrastructure, architecture, and engineering leadership.

You are comfortable operating across three key domains

AI Applications

You design and build intelligent AI experiences powered by LLMs, agents, tools, and orchestration frameworks. You understand model behaviour, prompt engineering, evaluation strategies, context management, and how to create reliable AI solutions that deliver measurable business value.

AI Automation & Integration

You connect AI capabilities with enterprise systems through Microsoft Graph, Teams, SharePoint, APIs, workflows, and cloud services. You understand how to embed AI into business processes while maintaining security, governance, and operational excellence.

AI Infrastructure & Knowledge Systems

You build the foundation that makes enterprise AI possible. From vector search and document processing to RAG architectures, knowledge retrieval, and governance frameworks, you can design scalable and compliant AI platforms that perform in production environments.

While no candidate is expected to be a world-class specialist in every discipline, we're looking for a senior AI engineer who has strong experience across all three areas and can bring them together into practical, production-ready solutions.