About this Director, Generative AI Experience Engineering (EMEA) role at AKQA

AKQA · Onsite · Copenhagen

At AKQA (part of WPP), we believe in the imaginative application of art and science to create beautiful ideas, products and services. With an entrepreneurial and collaborative approach, we design adaptive digital products, services and experiences that capture the imagination and deliver meaningful returns for our clients. At AKQA, you will help define the next era of AI-native customer experiences, not as a future concept, but as live products and platforms already moving into the world.

The industry is entering a structural shift. Traditional digital experiences are becoming AI-native experiences, interfaces assembled in real-time around intent, conversation, retrieval and contextual generation. At AKQA, we are not exploring this future theoretically. We are already building it.

We are looking for a Director, Generative AI Experience Engineering to help define and deliver the next generation of AI-native customer experiences across commerce, content and customer interfaces for some of the world’s most ambitious brands.

This role sits at the intersection of AI systems engineering, generative experience design and modern frontend architecture leadership. We are not looking for a traditional engineering manager, nor a pure AI researcher removed from delivery. We are looking for a hands-on technical leader who can operate across architecture, engineering, experimentation, delivery and client advisory simultaneously.

You will lead and mentor a small engineering team whilst remaining close to the code, prototyping new ideas, shaping AI-native architectures and helping clients navigate AI transformation with confidence and clarity.

Based in a hybrid working environment, collaborating with global AKQA studios, you will work alongside some of the brightest minds in design, engineering and innovation, helping shape the future of AI-native experiences.

ROLE REQUIREMENTS

Technical Leadership

Lead the design and architecture of AI-native experience platforms, from frontend rendering systems through to retrieval, orchestration and agentic workflows.
Remain hands-on with engineering teams, contributing to prototypes, proof-of-concepts and production acceleration across emerging AI-enabled products and services.
Manage and mentor a team of developers whilst driving engineering quality, technical direction and delivery standards.

AI Systems & Experience Engineering

Build and shape AI-native customer experiences driven by intent, contextual generation, retrieval and adaptive orchestration.
Work across modern LLM ecosystems including foundation models, retrieval pipelines, vector storage, embeddings, multi-agent systems and AI observability tooling.
Design systems that support conversational rendering, dynamic content assembly, streaming UX and adaptive interfaces.
Actively experiment with AI tooling, workflows and engineering methodologies, bringing forward-thinking ideas into production environments.

Client Advisory & Strategic Leadership

Work directly with senior client stakeholders to shape AI transformation conversations, technical strategy and engineering roadmaps.
Lead discovery sessions, workshops and architecture discussions, translating technical complexity into commercial and customer experience value.
Act as the engineering authority within client engagements, confidently communicating what is technically viable, scalable and strategically valuable.

Innovation & Delivery

Lead rapid proof-of-concepts, innovation initiatives and production acceleration across undefined and emerging technical territory.
Operate comfortably in ambiguity whilst balancing experimentation, delivery quality and commercial realities.
Drive AI-augmented engineering methodologies and continuously improve engineering processes, tooling and technical standards.

Technical skills and knowledge:

Strong experience across modern frontend engineering and AI-native architecture, with the ability to design and deliver scalable, production-ready systems.

Frontend & Experience Engineering
- Advanced React and Next.js architecture
- Server Components, streaming UX and edge rendering
- Component systems and frontend orchestration
AI Ecosystems & Orchestration
- Experience across modern AI ecosystems including OpenAI, Gemini, Claude and OSS models
- RAG pipelines, vector databases, embeddings and chunking
- Tool calling, agentic systems, orchestration and memory frameworks
- Prompt engineering, prompt management and context engineering
- AI observability, evaluations, governance and guardrails
AI-Augmented Engineering
- AI-assisted development tooling including Claude Code, Cursor and Codex
- Prompt-driven engineering and AI pair-programming workflows
Cloud & Infrastructure
- Vercel & GCP preferred, with AWS and Azure also considered
- Serverless and edge infrastructure
- AI workload deployment and optimisation
- CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure as Code
Additional Technical Experience
- REST and GraphQL APIs
- Microservices and MACH architectures
- CMS, DXPs and MarTech ecosystems

QUALITIES AND CHARACTERISTICS

Must come from a strong engineering or development background with deep frontend architecture capability.
A naturally curious and experimental mindset with strong opinions around the future of AI-native experiences and modern engineering workflows.
Comfortable operating as both a technical architect and client-facing advisor.
Low ego, collaborative and delivery-focused, with the ability to inspire through technical credibility rather than hierarchy.
A systems thinker who understands the relationship between retrieval, orchestration, rendering and customer experience outcomes.
Proactive, resilient and comfortable operating within rapid experimentation cycles and evolving technical landscapes.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain complex AI systems and engineering decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Passionate about emerging technologies, AI tooling and continuously evolving engineering methodologies.

We believe great work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach including required in-office days. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

AKQA is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.

About WPP

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. For more information, visit WPP.com.

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About AKQA

CORE VALUES

Our founding values guide our work and the philosophy of our firm:

Innovation – pioneering ideas combined with the application of technology, to achieve lasting improvements in performance for our clients.

Service – outstanding service to our clients and colleagues, so we retain exceptional people and create trust-based relationships with clients.

Quality – adhere to the highest professional standards and superior quality.

Thought – recommending the best solutions through the most rigorous thinking process.

TEAMWORK

AKQA provides the highest quality ideas and innovation services to clients around the world. Our consistent track-record of results achieved for clients have set our firm apart. Through our focus on our core values, thought-leadership, rigorous delivery, and industry initiatives, AKQA is today one of the world’s most influential companies. Our goal is to become a high-performance environment where the most talented people flourish. With our perfectionist approach, people join AKQA for the opportunity to do the best work of their careers.

We create digital products, services and immersive experiences that are useful, usable, delightful and enjoyed by millions. We employ a rapid ideation and prototyping process that focuses on getting pilots into market quickly, helping clients make a sustained impact, increase their relevance and expand their connection. By embracing a pioneering approach that continues to lead and define the industry, we deliver cohesive blueprints that fulfil audience needs and surpass business goals.

LONG-TERM COMMITMENT

AKQA is committed to helping our team develop into the best possible practitioners and to providing them with an unparalleled foundation for their career. We help develop well-rounded professionals acquire leadership skills more quickly than at other organisations. Our employees benefit from the trusted long-term nature of our client relationships as well as the cultural alignment between the client and our own organisation, creating an optimum environment to deliver the work without any compromises.

ORGANISED TO SUCCEED

The core motivation at AKQA is product excellence. Although we are part of WPP, AKQA operates as an independent firm. Organically grown, our team works as a single firm, without geographic division. This means we can bring the best resources from our network to provide solutions for our clients.

In addition to our own Future Lions initiative, we have formed partnerships with many of the world’s leading universities so we can hire their best graduates. We combine youth and energy with maturity and experience to form a community that has a unique diversity of knowledge and exceptional professional judgement.

DEVELOPMENT

In addition to on-the-job training, AKQA offers a menu of training through the AKQA Academy and WPP Professional Development. This comprehensive curriculum of formal training is designed to equip our team with the substantive creative, engineering, business acumen, communications, management and analytical skills required to have professionally rewarding careers. AKQA Academy and WPP Professional Development courses are taught by leaders in their fields including AKQA’s own senior team and respected external experts.

To maintain the continuous focus on our core values, and provide a clear career path for our team, all of our Managing Directors and Executive Partners are promoted from within AKQA.

All AKQA employees and clients are invited to participate in the AKQA Insight and AKQA Tech.Insight thought leadership programmes. These comprise a series of informative lectures and Q&A sessions with authors, artists, athletes, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs who are recognised leaders in their respective disciplines.

DIVERSITY

We believe that diversity is vital to AKQA’s ability to provide our clients with the best recommendations and are committed to fostering a varied and inclusive work environment. We provide our employees with the canvas, tools and confidence to help them advance their careers in a way that best suits them.

SUSTAINABILITY

At AKQA we believe everything a company does should be about taking the responsibility to be respectful towards the community and the environment. We consider community and pro-bono work to be an important commitment of our employees. We encourage our team to devote their skills to a broad range of pro-bono and community activities, working with myriad charitable and not-for-profit organisations. AKQA is part of WPP’s Sustainability initiatives. WPP is ranked no. 49 in an annual round-up of the World’s Greenest Companies.

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