Head of Engineering - AI

Role: Head of Engineering Location: Haverhill (Suffolk) Office - ON SITE Reporting to: Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Role Type: Full-time, Permanent Package: Competitive salary and share scheme ROLE OVERVIEW This is a pivotal leadership role at the heart of one of the most innovative AI and creative technology businesses. The product is a pioneering consumer engagement tool, deployed in retail, heritage, Leisure, travel and many other industries, not only wowing customers but plugging into work flows for un precedented value and possibilities. The business has started to grow at pace, with live product in UK and international locations, we are helping to grow the team with highly talented individuals to be part of the future. As Head of Engineering, you will be the founder / CTO's right hand: owning the day-to-day technical delivery of our multimodal AI avatar platform, leading the engineering team, and shaping the architectural decisions that define how we build and scale. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• Proven experience leading engineering teams in a fast-paced, product-led environment, ideally in AI, SaaS, or deep-tech.
• Hands-on expertise with LLM integration and model-agnostic AI architectures.
• Strong cloud infrastructure skills across Azure, AWS or GCP. - Deep knowledge of enterprise API design, workflow engines, queuing systems, and backend integrations.
• Experience managing multidisciplinary technical teams.
• Track record of shipping production-grade AI or real-time systems. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP & ARCHITECTURE
• Own technical architecture of the platform.
• Make and document key architectural decisions.
• Evaluate and integrate emerging AI models.
• Define engineering standards.
• Act as escalation point for complex technical problems. TEAM MANAGEMENT & CULTURE
• Manage the engineering team.
• Hire, onboard and retain talent.
• Foster a culture of ownership and curiosity.
• Partner with the CTO as the team scales. DELIVERY & PRODUCT EXECUTION
• Own technical delivery of client deployments.
• Translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Ensure realistic timelines and risk management.
• Maintain oversight of active projects. PLATFORM & INFRASTRUCTURE
• Own cloud infrastructure.
• Champion DevOps and automation best practices.
• Ensure enterprise integrations meet production standards.
• Support compliance and security requirements. DEPUTISING FOR THE CTO
• Act as technical decision maker in CTO absence.
• Represent technical team at board and client level.
• Contribute to business strategy and roadmap.
• Grow into CTO role as business evolves. KPIs
• 99.9%+ platform uptime.
• Predictable sprint delivery.
• Strong team retention and development.
• Successful client integrations.
• Architecture readiness for growth.
• Security and compliance standards maintained. Please do talk to Chloe for more information. All applications will be handled by PIE recruitment as an embedded recruiter for this business. You may work out who this business is - please note their careers site is owned and managed by PIE recruitment and direct applications, including all agency specs come directly to PIE recruitment.