Principal Engineer – Advanced AI Engineering

JOB TITLE: Principal Engineer – Advanced AI Engineering

LOCATION: London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds or Manchester 

WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of our time, at our office location. 

About this Opportunity  

The new Advanced AI Engineering team is seeking Principal Engineers to join.  The purpose of the team is to evaluate emerging AI technology and methods, build MVPs, and hand over proven solutions for engineering at scale. A key priority of the team is enabling the Group to create industry‑leading AI-powered products and services that drive customer engagement and service excellence!

Join the Data & AI Unit within the Chief Technology Office (CTO), where the Group’s Data and AI technology strategy is created and supervised. Act as the Group’s primary lead for Data and AI development. Promote, cultivate, and support new products, capabilities, and approaches inspired by applied research and product discovery!

These technical leadership roles sit at the forefront of Agentic AI, combining complex engineering leadership with your curiosity, problem-solving, and GenAI expertise.

Day to day responsibilities include: 

• Partner with business platform teams to identify to priority problems and adoption bottlenecks, with a particular focus on market-leading, customer-facing agentic AI solutions that can operate in a regulated FSI environment. 

• Identify and evaluate high-potential emerging AI methods and technologies using applied research and prototyping 

• Lead the engineering of operational MVPs for critical AI business challenges, using your own hands-on expertise as well coaching/guiding others  

• Act as a domain expert in GenAI and Agentic AI technology and trusted advisor to engineering teams and business and technology leaders  

• Demonstrate and communicate the art of the possible and have a contribute to the development of business and technology strategy 

Why Lloyds Banking Group 

If you think all banks are the same, you’d be wrong. We’re an innovative, fast-changing business that’s shaping finance as a force for good. A bank that’s empowering its people to innovate, explore possibilities and grow with purpose. 

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What you’ll need  

• Proven experience as an engineering lead, delivering production‑grade solutions in complex environments, with accountability for outcomes 

• Proficient in at least two programming languages with experience of applying them effectively to solve complex problems 

• Strong applied AI/ML and GenAI experience, applying established patterns (RAG, tool use, guardrails, evaluation, agents) to real-world problems, with the ability to evaluate tools, approaches and trade-offs 

• Experience building and operating AI solutions in a regulated environment, including managing reliability, security, safety and explainability risks 

• Strong critical thinking and judgement: able to translate ambiguous problem spaces into clear technical direction, MVPs and scale‑out solutions, making sound trade‑offs in partnership with delivery teams 

• Ability to influence and mentor engineers through technical leadership, coaching and constructive feedback, and to engage senior stakeholders on technical direction and decisions 

Desirable: 

• Experience delivering technology solutions in regulated industries (financial services preferred) 

• Experience of research, either in industry or as part of an advanced degree or equivalent experience  

• Experience developing technology solutions for customer-facing platforms at scale (digital apps, contact centre/voice, colleague tooling)  

• Experience setting or evolving engineering standards, reference architectures or reusable patterns in large organisations 

• Experience of partnering with Enterprise Architecture functions 

About working for us  

Our focus is to ensure we're inclusive every day, building an organisation that reflects modern society and celebrates diversity in all its forms. We want our people to feel that they belong and can be their best, regardless of background, identity or culture. We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer initiative.

And it’s why we especially welcome applications from under-represented groups. We’re disability confident. So if you’d like reasonable adjustments to be made to our recruitment processes, just let us know. 

We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:  

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15% 

• An annual performance-related bonus 

• Share schemes including free shares 

• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping 

• 30 days’ holiday, with bank holidays on top 

• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies 

Ready for a career where you can have a positive impact as you learn, grow and thrive? Apply today and find out more.