Associate Director - Software

Job Description – Associate Director, AI Delivery

Job Summary

We are seeking a commercially astute and technically exceptional Associate Director to bridge client relationships and world-class AI & Cloud engineering delivery. You will be the primary interface between strategic clients and our engineering teams – winning new mandates, co-designing solutions, and owning end-to-end delivery from ideation to production. With 15+ years of experience, you bring deep Python and Generative AI expertise, proven cloud architecture skills, and the gravitas to influence at the C-suite level while staying hands-on with modern agentic development tooling.

Key Responsibilities

Solution Architecture & Solutioning

• Translate ambiguous client needs into structured, costed, and deliverable technical roadmaps.
• Architect end-to-end solutions: from ideation and PoC through to scalable production systems.
• Drive cloud-native design on Azure, AWS, GCP or hybrid platforms.
• Define reference architectures embedding Generative AI, LLMs, and agentic workflows.

Engineering Leadership & Delivery

• Lead multi-disciplinary teams of 10–20 engineers, leads, and architects across geographies.
• Establish and enforce delivery governance: agile rituals, quality gates, and risk management.
• Champion CI/CD, DevSecOps, and MLOps practices across all client programmes.
• Own program P&L, resource planning, and executive-level status reporting.
• Drive adoption of AI coding agents (GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Amazon Q) to accelerate delivery.

Generative AI & Intelligent Automation

• Embed Generative AI capabilities (LLMs, RAG pipelines, multi-agent systems) into enterprise products.
• Design and deploy AI agent workflows using tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and similar platforms.
• Evaluate and adopt emerging agentic frameworks (LangChain, Agent Core, CrewAI, etc.) to accelerate delivery.
• Champion responsible AI practices including governance, safety, and model observability.

People & Stakeholder Management

• Build, mentor, and grow a high-performance team of engineers and technical managers.
• Manage a complex stakeholder matrix: internal leadership, client sponsors, and delivery partners.
• Influence without authority across business units and geographies.
• Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous learning.

Qualifications & Experience

• 15+ years in software / AI engineering; 6+ years at senior leadership or Associate Director level.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Demonstrated track record of building and shipping end-to-end applications across the full SDLC.
• Full lifecycle ownership: ideation → architecture → engineering → production → optimisation.
• Proven cloud architecture and deployment across at least one hyperscaler.
• Demonstrable track record of winning and delivering large-scale client engagements.
• Strong commercial acumen: P&L ownership, proposal writing, SOW and contract management.