AI & Agentic Technical Delivery Lead

AI & Agentic Technical Delivery Lead Senior Manager (CL6)London, ManchesterAccenture Song - Data & AIWe AreAccenture Song accelerates growth and value for our clients through sustained customer relevance. Our capabilities span ideation to execution: growth, product and experience design; technology and experience platforms; creative, media and marketing strategy; and campaign, content and channel orchestration. With strong client relationships and deep industry expertise, we help our clients operate at the speed of life through the unlimited potential of imagination, technology and intelligence.Visit us at: RoleGenerative AI is moving from experimentation to enterprise delivery — and the gap between the two is where most organisations struggle. The difference between a compelling demo and a production system that works at scale, handles edge cases, stays within cost, and actually changes business outcomes is enormous.We are looking for an AI & Agentic Technical Delivery Lead who has been there before — multiple times. Someone who has personally designed and shipped GenAI and agentic solutions, led the engineering teams that built them, and carried the accountability when things did not go to plan. Someone who has made the hard calls: when to stop a POC that is not ready for production, when a proposed architecture will not hold, when a team is underestimating complexity, and when an estimate is wishful thinking.This is a senior technical leadership role, operating at the intersection of client advisory, solution quality, and delivery executionWhat Sets You ApartYou have shipped GenAI products. Not just prototypes that lived in a demo environment. Not just POCs that got handed to another team. Actual production systems, with real users, real data, real edge cases, and real consequences when something went wrong.You have led engineering teams — hands-on enough to review a pull request and challenge a design decision, senior enough to set the technical direction and make it stick. You know how development teams work from the inside, which means you know where estimates go wrong, where technical debt accumulates silently, and where a team is about to hit a wall they have not seen yet.You are the person in the room who can tell the difference between an AI solution that will work and one that sounds good in a slide. Not because of intuition — because you have built both, and you know the signals.What You Will DoTechnical Leadership & QualityServe as the senior technical authority on GenAI and agentic solution delivery across client engagements — setting the bar for what production-ready looks likeReview and challenge solution architectures end-to-end: LLM selection, RAG pipeline design, agentic workflow logic, evaluation frameworks, guardrails, cost modelling, and scalabilityDefine and enforce the standards that separate a working POC from a deployable product — and have the difficult conversations when that line is being blurredIdentify technical risk early — data quality issues, latency bottlenecks, hallucination exposure, integration complexity, model drift — before they become delivery problemsAct as a technical quality layer across engagements: reviewing outputs, challenging assumptions, and ensuring what gets built actually solves the business problemClient Advisory & Solution ShapingAdvise senior client stakeholders on what is technically feasible, what is not, and what the real path to production looks like — with the credibility that comes from having done itShape and size AI solutions accurately: translating ambiguous client ambitions into concrete technical requirements, realistic delivery estimates, and honest risk assessments, understanding the existing vendor/product landscape and capabilityDistinguish clearly between what a POC proves, what it does not prove, and what needs to be true before scaling — and communicate that distinction to clients in terms they can act onChallenge and push back on assumptions when the technical reality does not support them — constructively, but without ambiguitySupport business development: contributing to proposals, shaping technical approachesDelivery Execution & Team EnablementLead and support cross-functional on-shore, near-shore, off-shore and blended delivery teams — engineers, data scientists, architects, and product managers — providing technical direction without creating dependencyUnblock delivery: diagnose where teams are stuck, identify the root cause quickly, and get things moving — whether the issue is technical, process-related, or people-relatedEstablish engineering practices that scale: code review standards, evaluation frameworks, testing approaches, deployment patterns, and documentation expectationsBring delivery realism to planning — challenge timelines that are too optimistic, resource plans that are too thin, and scope that is quietly expanding beyond what was agreedDevelop the GenAI delivery capability of the teams around you — sharing knowledge, reviewing work, and raising the standard of what the practice producesThought Leadership & Practice DevelopmentBe a credible external voice on GenAI and agentic Tech delivery — in client conversations, in pitches, and in the marketBuild reusable delivery assets, architecture patterns, and evaluation frameworks that accelerate future engagementsStay genuinely current on the GenAI landscape — not just the headlines, but the technical detail: what models are doing what, where the real capability gaps are, what is hype and what is notContribute to the growth of Accenture Song's AI capability — helping define how we deliver, what we deliver, and how we build the talent to sustain itWhat You Will BringRequired — Proven GenAI DeliveryA track record of shipping GenAI solutions into production — RAG pipelines, agentic workflows, LLM-powered applications, or multimodal systems — not just designing or advising on themDeep hands-on experience with the full GenAI delivery stack: LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, open-source), vector databases, embedding models, orchestration frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, AutoGen, or equivalent), and deployment infrastructureExperience across the full lifecycle from POC to production — including the hard part: evaluation design, prompt engineering at scale, guardrails, cost optimisation, latency management, and monitoring in live environmentsThe ability to look at a GenAI architecture and immediately identify what will break, what will be too slow, what will cost too much, and what the team has not thought about yetGenuine familiarity with agentic AI patterns — multi-agent orchestration, tool use, memory management, human-in-the-loop design — and where they succeed and fail in real delivery contextsRequired — Technical LeadershipExperience leading engineering and cross-functional teams as a technical lead or principal engineer — with a track record of raising delivery quality, not just managing itReview architecture decisions, challenge implementation choices, and be taken seriously by senior engineers — without needing to write all the code yourselfExperience with software engineering fundamentals: API design, system integration, cloud infrastructure (Azure, GCP, or AWS), CI/CD practices, and production monitoringPython proficiency — you can read, write, and review code at a level that gives you real technical credibility with delivery teamsA track record of accurate technical estimation — you have been wrong before, you know why, and your estimates reflect that learningRequired — Advisory & CommercialSenior client-facing experience — comfortable advising at C-suite and senior leadership level with the authority that comes from genuine delivery experienceAbility to translate technical complexity into business language without losing accuracy — and to translate business ambition into technical reality without losing the clientExperience shaping and sizing engagements: scoping work, building estimates, assessing feasibility, and contributing to proposals that reflect what can actually be deliveredExperience in AI, software engineering, or data & analytics delivery, with a significant portion in hands-on technical rolesExperience in a consulting or professional services environment is an advantage — you understand how client delivery works, how teams are structured, and how to operate across multiple engagementsPreferredExperience delivering agentic AI solutions beyond standard RAG — autonomous workflows, tool-use agents, multi-agent systems in productionFamiliarity with AI safety, evaluation methodologies, and responsible AI practices in enterprise deploymentsExposure to GenAI in specific domains: customer experience, marketing automation, content generation, or enterprise knowledge managementExperience contributing to or building internal AI delivery accelerators, frameworks, or reusable assetsBachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related fieldWho You AreYou have built enough AI systems to have strong opinions — and the track record to back them up. You know what good looks like because you have delivered it, and you know what failure looks like because you have navigated it. You lead by raising the standard of everyone around you.You are solution-oriented and delivery-focused. You do not present problems without a view on how to solve them. You do not let ambiguity become an excuse for inaction. And when something is not working — technically, commercially, or organisationally — you say so early, clearly, and with a path forward.What's in it for YouOur Total Rewards consist of a competitive basic salary, annual performance bonus, opportunities to acquire equity and a wide range of health and wellbeing benefits. These include:30 days of leave per year plus 3 extra volunteering days for charitable work of your choiceFamily-friendly and flexible work policiesAttractive pension plan with financial wellbeing support and resourcesPrivate healthcare insurance plan and Mental Wellbeing supportEmployee Assistance Programme, Career Development and CounsellingA range of generous Parental Leave offerings#LI-EU SNGCR01 -About AccentureAccenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 791,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. Our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360 value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360 value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities.Visit us at Equal Employment Opportunity Statement We believe that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences. All employment decisions shall be made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, citizenship status or any other basis as protected by applicable law. Our rich diversity makes us more innovative, more competitive, and more creative, which helps us better serve our clients and our communities.SummaryLocation: LondonType: Full time