Sobre esta vaga de Lead / Principal AI Engineer na AKQA

AKQA · Presencial · London

At AKQA (part of WPP), we believe in the imaginative application of art and science to design a better future. Our Technology teams combine engineering excellence, creativity and innovation to build intelligent digital products, platforms and experiences for some of the world's most ambitious brands.

As a Lead / Principal AI Engineer, you'll design, build and deliver production-grade AI systems, intelligent workflows and agentic solutions that power modern digital experiences. From consumer-facing applications and connected digital products to intelligent marketing platforms and bespoke enterprise tools, you'll turn emerging AI capabilities into reliable, scalable and commercially valuable solutions.

This is a highly hands-on engineering role within AKQA's London studio, combining deep technical expertise with architecture and technical leadership. You'll spend the majority of your time designing and building solutions, while also working closely with clients, creative teams, strategists and engineers to translate ambitious ideas into production-ready technology.

You'll bring a strong background in backend or platform engineering, alongside recent, practical experience delivering generative AI and agentic systems into live environments. You'll understand that building a successful AI solution goes far beyond a prototype, requiring robust architecture, evaluation, security, observability and careful management of cost, performance and reliability.

ROLE REQUIREMENTS

Architect, develop and deploy production-ready AI systems, including agentic workflows, multi-agent orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and intelligent automation solutions.
Lead the technical design and implementation of AI-powered digital products, applications and platforms, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, reliable and maintainable.
Design and integrate agent tools, APIs and Model Context Protocol (MCP) interfaces, enabling secure and efficient interaction with enterprise systems, databases and external services.
Develop compound AI architectures combining large language models with specialised models, semantic search, classification, re-ranking and deterministic workflows to improve accuracy, performance and cost efficiency.
Build robust evaluation frameworks, automated testing, guardrails and observability capabilities to monitor model behaviour, output quality, hallucinations, latency and operational performance.
Apply strong engineering judgement to model selection, prompt engineering, structured outputs, fine-tuning and retrieval strategies, balancing technical requirements with commercial objectives.
Design and develop backend services, APIs and integration layers using Python, TypeScript, Node.js and modern cloud technologies.
Collaborate with front-end, mobile and product engineering teams to integrate AI capabilities into modern web applications, including React, Next.js and headless digital platforms.
Implement effective strategies for managing token usage, caching, latency, rate limits, fallback mechanisms and graceful degradation across AI services.
Establish CI/CD practices for AI systems, incorporating automated evaluations, regression testing, version control and reliable deployment processes.
Work with cloud and model platforms such as Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI, OpenAI and Anthropic to design and deliver enterprise-ready solutions.
Partner with creative, strategy, UX and technology teams to explore innovative applications of AI and translate concepts into technically feasible solutions.
Provide technical leadership and architectural guidance to engineering teams, promoting high standards of software quality, security and engineering best practice.
Engage with clients and senior stakeholders to communicate technical approaches, explain architectural decisions and shape solutions that deliver meaningful business value.

QUALITIES AND CHARACTERISTICS

Significant experience in backend, platform or software engineering, with a strong understanding of distributed systems, microservices, asynchronous processing, API architecture and cloud infrastructure.
Proven hands-on experience designing, deploying and maintaining generative AI or agentic systems in production, with a strong track record of delivering commercially deployed AI engineering solutions.
Advanced proficiency in Python and/or TypeScript/Node.js, with a commitment to writing clean, testable and maintainable production code.
Strong practical understanding of LLM architectures, agentic workflows, tool calling, RAG, embeddings, vector databases and hybrid retrieval techniques.
Experience with agent orchestration frameworks such as LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, Vercel AI SDK or custom-built orchestration solutions.
Demonstrable experience developing AI evaluation and observability capabilities, using tools such as LangSmith, Arize Phoenix, Braintrust, Helicone or OpenTelemetry.
Strong understanding of software architecture, security, authentication, data management and enterprise integration patterns.
Experience implementing automated testing and CI/CD pipelines, including unit, integration and regression testing, with an understanding of how to evaluate non-deterministic AI systems.
Practical knowledge of cloud infrastructure and AI model ecosystems, including the operational considerations involved in deploying and scaling intelligent applications.
Understanding of modern digital product development, including web applications, headless CMS platforms, APIs and front-end technologies.
Ability to balance technical ambition with practical considerations around cost, latency, performance, security and maintainability.
A curious and pragmatic approach to emerging technologies, with the ability to distinguish meaningful innovation from experimentation and identify where AI can deliver genuine value.
Confident communicating complex technical concepts to clients and non-technical stakeholders, contributing to solution design and technical decision-making.
Comfortable taking ownership of technical architecture while remaining actively involved in hands-on engineering and delivery.
Experience working within a digital agency, technology consultancy or product-led environment, collaborating across multidisciplinary teams and managing client expectations.
Exposure to fine-tuning smaller or open-weight models, such as Llama or Mistral, for domain-specific applications would be advantageous.
Experience with design-to-code workflows, Figma integrations, design systems or generative user interfaces would be beneficial.
A collaborative, proactive and technically curious individual who enjoys solving complex problems and delivering high-quality engineering solutions.

Explore our extensive range of benefits here.

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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Sobre a 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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