AI Tech Lead (Hands-On) | Python | Java | Agentic AI | AWS Bedrock

AI Tech Lead (Hands-On) | Python | Java | Agentic AI | AWS Bedrock | Outside IR35

Rate: £380 - £420 per day Outside IR35

Contract: Contract - 6 months+

Location: London - hybrid, up to 3 days a week onsite

Eligibility: UK based with existing right to work

Requirement: Hands-on tech lead experience on production AI systems with BOTH Python and Java (Non-Negotiable)

🚨 Please only apply if you have commercial experience with ALL of the following 🚨

• Strong Python engineering in production with FastAPI
• Strong Java engineering in production
• Leading a team of engineers while staying hands-on
• Building Generative or Agentic AI features with LLMs into real apps or workflows
• AWS services including EC2, EKS, S3, SQS and Bedrock
• CI/CD and observability in regulated enterprise environments

Optimal have partnered with a global next-gen engineering consultancy delivering AI, cloud and automation programmes for some of the world’s biggest organisations. You’ll lead the build of an enterprise-grade Generative and Agentic AI platform for a major global insurer - real production AI, at serious scale, in a regulated environment where getting it right matters.

This is a genuine hands-on lead role. You’ll set the technical direction, write the code, and make sure what ships is secure, observable and loved by the teams who use it.

Required Background

• Proven experience leading AI or engineering teams while staying hands-on
• Production Python (FastAPI) and Java engineering
• Practical experience integrating LLMs into enterprise systems
• Experience evaluating LLM performance, cost and prompt handling complexity
• Strong grasp of authentication, secret management, network boundaries and model access governance

ℹ️ Very Important Notes

• This is hands-on - not suitable for pure architects or managers who have stepped away from code
• Python AND Java are both essential - one without the other won’t be considered
• Must be comfortable working under strict enterprise security controls
• London office attendance up to 3 days a week

Must-Haves

• Generative and Agentic AI patterns: LLM integration, RAG, prompt-driven workflows and agent orchestration
• CI/CD expertise, ideally Azure DevOps
• Observability built in from day one
• AWS: EC2, EKS, S3, SQS, Bedrock and AgentCore
• Proactive leadership - spots gaps and drives solutions without waiting for tickets

Bonus Experience

• Kong API Gateway, Kong Mesh, Flux CD
• Terraform with GitOps workflows
• Prompt evaluation, observability and red teaming tools (Arize, Promptfoo)
• SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL databases
• Vector search technologies

Hands-On Experience With

• Python (FastAPI) and Java
• LLMs, RAG and agent systems
• AWS Bedrock and AgentCore
• Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines
• Microservices and RESTful APIs

What You’ll Be Doing

Technical Leadership

• Lead a team of AI developers building core services, features and capabilities on an enterprise Agentic AI platform
• Shape API standards, reusable patterns and documentation for platform adoption
• Partner with platform leads, architects and design teams to operationalise AI services reliably

AI Engineering

• Build and optimise Python AI components: prompt orchestration, output validation and evaluation tooling
• Integrate LLMs with enterprise systems, observability and security frameworks
• Contribute to RAG implementations and data access patterns
• Drive benchmarking, evaluation and experiment tracking for LLM performance and cost

Delivery & DevOps

• Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps primarily)
• Troubleshoot and optimise performance across distributed systems and cloud services
• Automate everything to cut toil and accelerate delivery

What They’re Looking For

• A hands-on lead who builds alongside the team
• Someone comfortable in emerging domains where best practice is still being written
• A collaborative communicator who earns trust across engineering, data and product
• An engineer who adopts new AI techniques in a structured, secure way

If you tick every box above and want to lead real Agentic AI into production at enterprise scale, get in touch for a fast response.