Lead AI Engineer

Location: Sydney
Discipline: Technology
Job type: Permanent
Salary: 180000 to 200000
Contact name: Nick Paisley

Contact email: nickp@talentlink.com.au
Job ref: 1421539
Published: about 16 hours ago
Startdate: ASAP
Lead AI Engineer - Enterprise AI Platforms (LLMs | AWS | Databricks)
 
We're partnering with a large enterprise at a critical point in its AI evolution.
 
This role is for a Lead Engineer who can own the design, delivery and operation of production AI systems — setting technical direction while staying hands-on. You'll lead the build of AI platforms that are safe, scalable, observable and trusted, not experimental or hype-driven.
 
This is a true technical leadership role at the intersection of AI engineering, platform architecture, governance and cross-functional delivery.
 
 
What You'll Own
  • Technical ownership of enterprise-grade AI systems using LLMs and agentic architectures
  • Design and operation of LLMOps / AgentOps (prompt lifecycle, evaluation, red-teaming, HITL controls)
  • Architecture of end-to-end AI data paths: ingestion, embeddings, vector stores, RAG pipelines, caching and quality controls
  • Safe release strategies: canary deployments, A/B testing, feature flags and controlled exposure
  • AI system observability, reliability and incident response
  • Platform evolution, architectural standards and technical debt roadmaps
  • Technical leadership across teams, including mentoring and engineering standards
  • Deep collaboration with Product, Security, Legal/Privacy and Executive stakeholders
 
What You Bring
  • 6+ years in software engineering with significant ownership of production AI systems
  • Deep hands-on experience with LLMs, RAG, tool/function calling, planning and memory
  • Strong delivery experience on AWS and Databricks (MLflow / Mosaic AI)
  • Advanced Python engineering (FastAPI / FastMCP preferred)
  • Strong cloud architecture, CI/CD and Infrastructure-as-Code capability
  • Deep understanding of AI safety, evaluation, governance and risk controls
  • Experience leading engineers and setting technical direction
Technical Environment
 
- Python | FastAPI | React + TypeScript
- Databricks Lakehouse | Vector DBs (pgvector or equivalent)
- Advanced RAG + guardrails
- AWS cloud platforms
- CI/CD, automated evals, model registries
- Observability (metrics, logs, traces)
 
This Role Suits Someone Who
  • Thinks in systems, not demos
  • Understands AI failure modes and operational risk
  • Balances speed, safety and scalability
  • Can lead technically while remaining hands-on
  • Is comfortable influencing across engineering, product and executive teams
If you want to shape enterprise AI platforms that are safe, trusted and built to last, this is a rare leadership opportunity.
 
Apply now or reach out for a confidential discussion.