Lead AI Engineer

Location: Abuja
Work Mode: Onsite
Employment Type: Full-time
Reports To: MD
Salary: ₦850,000 gross upon resumption and reviewed to ₦1,200,000 after probation period.

This job is a build role. It is not IT support, and it is not a digital transformation strategy role. In this job you will design, architect and deploy the digital infrastructure and AI systems that let a lean HoldCo team govern multiple subsidiaries with institutional precision.

The company has a clear position: a complete specification handed to the best available AI tools produces a bespoke, company-owned system faster and more cheaply than configuring and licensing a commercial one. You will be expected to build that way. What will be assessed is whether you can specify well and hold quality to a high standard.

What success looks like

• By Day 90: ten live, production-grade, AI-powered systems deployed
• By end of Year 1: the institutional core of the company's AI suite built, every subsidiary given a digital launch template, and the company positioned as one of the most digitally sophisticated holding companies in Nigeria

What You Will Do

Build and deploy

• Design, architect and deploy production-grade AI systems, including the MD Command Centre, Meeting Intelligence Engine, Portfolio Intelligence Dashboard, Agentic Recruitment System and other systems in the company's Product & Systems Register
• Develop the company's AI institutional core: the context layer, advanced meeting intelligence, portfolio dashboard and agent layer
• Build full-stack applications across frontend, backend, database and deployment
• Implement RAG, embeddings, vector stores and agentic workflows, with outputs grounded and sources cited
• Build for model portability so the company can change AI providers without rebuilding its products

Specify and agree

• Turn business needs into system specifications by engaging users, validating requirements and getting written agreement before development
• Design interfaces and workflows, and obtain MD approval before development begins
• Test with real company data, including edge cases and failure scenarios, before anything goes live

Govern and secure

• Build and maintain the company's Microsoft 365 environment and governance (Entra ID, SharePoint, Teams, Power Automate, Intune)
• Own the software layer of identity and access management
• Specify the physical infrastructure your software needs (readers, servers, network, power); Administration procures, installs and maintains it
• Apply Nigerian data protection requirements (NDPR) from the design stage

Deliver and embed

• Make sure every system meets the company's definition of "finished": reliable, usable, documented, with clear failure handling and real user adoption
• Drive organisational change so employees actually move from existing processes to the new systems
• Produce READMEs, architecture documents and runbooks for every system
• Maintain the Product & Systems Register and support the quarterly confirmation of the build sequence
• Monitor system operating costs and keep documented records of technology spend
• Deliver two substantive progress updates each week and a monthly one-page scorecard to the Office of the MD
• Raise proposed changes or concerns about priorities in writing, in line with the MD's agreed sequence
• Support subsidiary digital launch templates and the wider digital infrastructure across the portfolio

Requirements

Essential

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant or related field
• Shipped production systems that real people use to do real work, not prototypes or proofs of concept
• **Designed and shipped at least one system built on an AI API (**beyond using a coding assistant)
• Built at least one agentic system that acts autonomously without per-request user input
• Full-stack capability: React/Next.js, Node.js or Python, PostgreSQL or equivalent, and deployment
• Hands-on experience with RAG, embeddings and vector stores, and the judgment to ground and cite answers
• Experience building so the AI provider can be swapped without a rebuild
• Working knowledge of Microsoft 365 governance (Entra ID, SharePoint, Teams, Power Automate, Intune)
• Understanding of Nigerian data protection requirements (NDPR)
• Ability to take a brief, architect a solution, build it and deploy it without a team

Strong advantage

• Experience running or fine-tuning open-weight models on owned infrastructure. The company intends to move sensitive inference to company-controlled hardware in Nigeria over time.

Who You Are

• Disciplined. You document as you build, write READMEs a stranger could follow, and never push an undocumented system to production.
• A system designer. You have an eye for detail and know that inconsistent table borders and a default blue submit button are a brand liability. Your interfaces feel effortless.
• Comfortable with ambiguity. There are no legacy systems here, only blank canvases, and that energises you.
• A change-maker. You can get an organisation to change how it works, which is the part most builders underestimate.

Why This Role

• Build the digital foundation of a company from scratch, with real ownership and no legacy constraints
• Direct access to the Managing Director
• Your systems will shape how an entire portfolio of businesses operates

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: ₦850,000.00 per month

Application Question(s):

• Are you familiar with Nigerian data protection requirements (NDPR)?
• Have you built an agentic system that acts on its own without a user prompting each step?
• What is your notice period?
• Where in Abuja do you reside?
• What AI system have you built and deployed that people actually use at work?
• Have you managed Microsoft 365 using Entra ID, SharePoint, Teams, Power Automate or Intune?)
• Are you comfortable with the proposed salary structure of ₦850,000 gross per month during probation, increasing to ₦1,200,000 gross per month after successful completion of probation? If yes, would you like us to proceed with your application for the role?

Location:

• Abuja (Preferred)

Work Location: In person