Head of AI Engineering & Innovation

The Company

Sandhata is a global consultancy providing Next Gen Engineering Services dedicated to transforming businesses. Our services span all facets of Digital Transformation, DevOps & Cloud, Integration, Automation, Low Code Application Development and AI-enabled services. Sandhata is a privately held IT services company with bases in the UK and India operating worldwide to help clients deliver a 'digital first' strategy. Sandhata is currently working with clients across various industry sectors, helping them to deliver cutting-edge technology solutions that streamline business processes and drive IT efficiency.

The Role

We are seeking a hands-on Head of AI Engineering & Innovation to lead Sandhata's AI practice, shape our AI strategy, drive innovation initiatives and support the delivery of AI-enabled services, products and tools for both Sandhata and our clients.This role combines technical leadership, coding, solution design, pre-sales support and thought leadership, requiring someone who is equally comfortable building AI solutions as they are presenting them to clients and internal stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and lead Sandhata's AI Engineering and Innovation strategy.
• Lead the AI & Innovation Engineering practice.
• Deliver Sandhata's AI-enabled client solutions, internal tools, platforms, products and innovation projects.
• Innovate and remain hands-on with coding, architecture, engineering and technical problem solving.
• Enable business development through proposals, pitches, workshops and client engagement.
• Role model as a thought leader on AI, innovation and emerging technologies.

Mandatory Skills & Experience

• Proven experience leading AI engineering, innovation or AI product teams.
• Strong hands-on software engineering background with production-grade development experience.
• Strong Python skills, ideally including FastAPI.
• Strong AWS experience, including services such as Bedrock, Lambda, ECS/EKS, API Gateway and S3.
• Experience with LangChain, LangGraph, RAG, vector databases and multi-agent systems.
• Experience building APIs, platforms, tools and AI-enabled products.
• Familiarity with evaluation and observability tools such as Arize, Promptfoo, LangSmith or MLflow.
• Experience with red teaming, AI safety, testing and governance.
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD, DevOps, Docker and Kubernetes.
• Strong communication skills and experience supporting pre-sales and client engagements.
• Experience working in regulated sectors such as banking, telecoms or insurance.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with Azure cloud and Azure AI services.
• Familiarity with AWS AgentCore.
• Experience with MLOps, monitoring and deployment tooling.
• Knowledge of knowledge graphs and graph databases.
• Experience with low code, automation and integration platforms.
• Familiarity with Front End technologies and product development practices.
• Experience building reusable accelerators and internal developer platforms.
• Exposure to enterprise architecture and solution design.
• Experience delivering innovation programmes or internal transformation initiatives.

Behavioural Competencies

• Strong communicator who can simplify complex technical concepts.
• Commercially aware with a strong business mindset.
• Comfortable balancing strategic leadership with hands-on coding and technical delivery.
• Pragmatic, delivery-focused and able to work through ambiguity.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills.

What Success Looks like

• Sandhata has a credible and growing AI Engineering and Innovation Practice.
• AI services are recognised and commercially successful part of Sandhata's offering.
• Sandhata develops reusable AI tools, accelerators and internal capabilities.
• Clients see Sandhata as a trusted advisor for AI and innovation.
• Innovation initiatives deliver measurable value internally and for clients.

Sandhata is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.