AI Lead - £75k - Winsford

AI Lead

Location: Winsford, Cheshire
Working pattern: Hybrid, two days per week onsite
Salary: £65,000 to £75,000
Employment type: Permanent

Exalto Consulting is recruiting for an AI Lead to help a software business expand the practical use of AI across its development and delivery teams.
This is not a role for someone whose AI experience is limited to using coding assistants or running isolated proof of concepts. The business needs someone who has built and delivered AI solutions in production and can help others adopt AI in a structured and useful way.

You will work across software development, testing, business analysis and requirements gathering, helping teams understand where AI can improve the delivery lifecycle and how those changes should be implemented.

The role will remain technically involved, but the wider responsibility is to provide direction, build confidence and improve how AI is used across the organisation.

Responsibilities
  • Lead the adoption of AI across the full software development lifecycle.
  • Identify practical AI use cases across development, testing, analysis and delivery.
  • Work directly with technical teams to design and deliver production AI solutions.
  • Guide developers, testers and business analysts on effective and responsible AI use.
  • Support the development of AI enabled features within existing software products.
  • Run workshops, technical discussions and stakeholder meetings.
  • Explain AI capabilities, limitations and delivery options clearly to customers and internal teams.
  • Help establish standards around AI governance, testing, security and quality.
  • Support existing AI specialists by extending their work across the wider business.
Experience required
  • Commercial experience building and delivering AI solutions in production.
  • A software development background, ideally using C# and .NET.
  • Experience integrating AI into existing products, platforms or business processes.
  • Strong understanding of software architecture, APIs, data flows and cloud hosted applications.
  • Experience leading technical change across several delivery functions, not only software development.
  • Evidence of helping teams adopt AI tools, processes or ways of working.
  • Confidence running customer or stakeholder meetings and explaining technical subjects clearly.
  • The ability to remain technically credible while providing leadership and direction.
Experience with Azure AI, Azure OpenAI, agentic workflows, RAG, AI agents or Microsoft Copilot would be useful, but practical delivery experience is more important than familiarity with specific tools.

This role may suit an AI Lead, AI Enablement Lead, Principal AI Engineer, AI Technical Lead or senior software engineering leader who has already delivered AI in production and helped other teams adopt it.

Job Details

Company
Exalto Consulting
Location
Winsford, Cheshire, United Kingdom
Employment Type
Permanent
Salary
£65000 - £75000/annum £75,000
Posted