Job Title: AI Team Lead
Reports To: Senior Management Team
Position Overview: We are excited to announce an opening for an AI Team Lead within our team! This is a crucial role in driving the successful development and delivery of scalable AI solutions across Softworks.
This individual must be highly technical and hands-on, as the successful candidate will be responsible for leading and mentoring a dedicated team of Machine Learning Developers and AI Engineers while actively contributing to the design, architecture, and development of product-ready AI systems.
Acting as a player-coach, this role will combine technical leadership with team management responsibilities, including overseeing agile workflows, conducting code reviews, and supporting the growth and development of team members. The successful candidate will work closely with leadership to translate high-level strategy into innovative, scalable machine learning products and solutions.
This is an excellent opportunity for a proactive and creative individual to contribute to the success of a growing organisation while shaping the future of AI initiatives within the business.
Role Responsibilities:
Digital & AI Strategy:
· Define and own the organisation’s digital and AI vision and roadmap, ensuring alignment with broader business objectives.
· Build and continuously evolve a prioritised portfolio of digital and AI initiatives based on business value, effort, and strategic importance.
· Maintain an informed view of emerging technologies and AI trends, translating these into practical opportunities for the business.
Opportunity Discovery & Process Transformation:
· Lead the identification and assessment of digital and AI opportunities across business operations and customer journeys.
· Analyse current processes and operating models to identify areas for optimisation, automation, and enhanced data utilisation.
· Drive process re-engineering initiatives to improve efficiency, scalability, and client experience.
Solution Design:
· Translate business requirements into clearly defined solution concepts and target operating models.
· Facilitate requirements gathering and solution design activities, ensuring alignment between business stakeholders and technical delivery teams.
· Champion user-centric design principles and ensure solutions deliver measurable business outcomes.
AI Engineering & Solution Development:
· Design, build, and optimise machine learning solutions, including Large Language Model (LLM) fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, and predictive AI models.
· Contribute directly to the development of production-ready AI systems and technical architecture.
· Collaborate with Development/Machine Learning/AI teams to deploy models to production via CI/CD pipelines, optimise inference latency, and establish monitoring for data and model drift.
· Establish software engineering standards across the AI team through code reviews, unit testing, and integration testing.
Team Leadership & Agile Delivery:
· Lead and monitor a team of ML Developers and AI Engineers, conducting regular 1-1s, providing technical guidance and supporting career development.
· Own day-to-day agile workflows, including sprint planning, daily stand-ups, retrospectives, and ticket refinement.
· Translate high-level project goals into clear, actionable technical tasks and delivery plans.
· Act as the primary escalation point for technical hurdles, debugging complex system issues, and proactively managing technical debt.
Product & Stakeholder Alignment:
· Partner with Developers & Test Engineers to evaluate the technical feasibility of proposed AI features and solutions.
· Scope data requirements and contribute to delivery estimates and implementation planning.
· Co-ordinate with relevant teams to ensure access to reliable, clean, labelled, and compliant datasets for training and testing.
· Support collaboration between technical teams and business stakeholders throughout project delivery.
Continuous Improvement:
· Foster collaboration within the Softworks Group and liaise effectively with other departments and stakeholders.
· Promote knowledge sharing, technical excellence, and continuous learning within the AI team.
· Stay updated with emerging AI technologies, machine learning trends, and industry best practices.
· Ensure compliance with data governance, security standards, and relevant regulatory requirements.
Requirements:
Education & Qualifications:
· Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics, or related field.
Professional Skills:
- 5+ years’ experience working as ML Engineer or Data Scientist
- Previous experience leading technical projects, mentoring junior developers, or acting as a scrum master/team lead
- Deep expertise in Python and deep learning frameworks, particularly PyTorch
- Proven experience building systems using LLM orchestration frameworks such as LangChain and LlamaIndex
- Experience working with vector databases including Pinecone, Qdrant, or Milvus
- Strong knowledge of cloud ML infrastructure platforms such as AWS Sagemaker, GCP Vertex AI, or Azure ML
- Demonstrated experience building, scaling, and deploying machine learning systems into production environments
- Strong familiarity with Agile delivery methodologies including Scrum and Kanban
- Experience using project management and collaboration tools such as Jira and Linear
- Excellent problem-solving, analytical and technical troubleshooting skills
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Expectations:
· Demonstrate agility in a fast-changing technological environment, being open and adaptable to unsuspecting change.
· Encouraging excellence and goal achievement within Softworks, while striving for the same in your personal development.
· Communicate regularly and efficiently with all stakeholders, both internal and external.
· Maintain strong co-operative relationships within the team and other departments to ensure that the organisation continues to function successfully.
· Ability to analyse complex data, identify issues, and recommend solutions.
· High level of accuracy and a commitment to producing high quality work.
· Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present information clearly and concisely.
· Ability to manage multiple tasks, prioritise effectively, and meet deadlines.
· Understanding of business operations and how marketing supports strategic objectives.
· Strong ethical standards and a professional approach to work.
About the Softworks Group:
For over 30 years, we have been assisting companies around the world in organising the working day to make them more productive, profitable, and add value to their operations.
Our globally recognised and acclaimed Workforce Management Solutions include:
· Time & Attendance/Flexible Working
· Labour Scheduling & Optimisation
· Absence Management
· Project Tracking
· Access Control
We take a customer-centric approach to always exceed expectations and delight our clients with a standout and powerful product. Within the Softworks Group, we are more than just people that work together; we belong to a team, all working towards one common goal – to create, market, and provide unparalleled support for the world’s most advanced and effective Workforce Management Solutions.
Location:
The role will be based in Softworks HQ in Bray, Co. Wicklow. We currently have hybrid working in place, combining office-based working with working from home.
Benefits:
· Annual Leave starting at 23.5 days
· Flexible Schedule
· Hybrid Working
· Workplace Initiatives to Promote Employee Wellbeing
· Vibrant Social Club
· Ministry of Fun
· Regular Office Lunches
· Cycle to Work Scheme
· Pension Contributions
· Access to state-of-the-art computational resources (GPU clusters, cloud budget)
· Support for continuing AI education
Salary Details:
DOE – will be discussed prior to the interview stage.
Agency assistance is not currently required.
Benefits:
- Bike to work scheme
- Flexitime
- On-site parking
- Work from home
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Bray, County Wicklow: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
Education:
Work authorisation:
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Bray, County Wicklow
