Lead AI Engineer (SC Cleared)

Job Title: Lead AI Engineer (SC Cleared) Location: Remote (with ad-hoc travel to client''s office in London) Contract Length: 6 months (with scope to extend) Start Date: ASAP IR35: Inside Interview Process: 1 Stage, MS Teams Clearance Required: SC (needs to have been used within the past 10 months) We are supporting a government client in hiring a Lead AI Engineer to drive AI adoption and governance across a large, security-sensitive engineering organisation. This is a senior technical influence role, pairing hands-on AI engineering practice with the ability to set standards and guardrails adopted across multiple delivery teams. The successful candidate will need demonstrable, hands-on practice with agentic AI engineering tooling, including model selection, prompt/harness engineering and agent-tool integration, alongside a genuine track record of getting engineering standards adopted across teams without formal authority. Initial emphasis will be on landscape setting, evaluation and standard design, shifting over time towards a forward deployed model working directly within delivery teams. This role suits an experienced, senior AI/software engineer who has moved deeply into practical AI-enabled engineering, comfortable operating as a Lead-level individual contributor rather than in a conventional people-management capacity, and confident engaging stakeholders across portfolios, professions, assurance functions and external suppliers. Key Responsibilities Lead horizon ..... full job details .....