Lead Engineer, AI Platform
Added 10 Sept · still live
Not disclosed
Salary
Not disclosed by employer
£54,700
Going rate
Skilled Worker going rate
This role likely qualifies for a Skilled Worker visa
SOC 2134 (85% match) is an eligible occupation, with a going rate of £54,700, and Pandora is a licensed sponsor. That is our reading of the rules. Whether they issue a Certificate of Sponsorship is still their call.
This could also be SOC 2139 (Information technology professionals not elsewhere classified., Heavy DevOps/IaC and platform infrastructure focus could fit n.e.c.). We read the code off the advert, so it is our best guess, not the employer's.
About the role
Ready to build the AI engine behind the world's largest jewellery brand?
As Lead AI Platform Engineer, you will be the technical force behind Pandora's AI platform, shaping how AI systems are built, scaled, and secured across the business. Combining deep hands-on engineering expertise with strong technical leadership, you will drive architectural excellence, elevate engineering standards, and deliver reliable, production-ready AI solutions at scale.
Your Key Responsibilities Will Be To
Technical Leadership
As Lead AI Platform Engineer, you will be the technical force behind Pandora's AI platform, shaping how AI systems are built, scaled, and secured across the business. Combining deep hands-on engineering expertise with strong technical leadership, you will drive architectural excellence, elevate engineering standards, and deliver reliable, production-ready AI solutions at scale.
Your Key Responsibilities Will Be To
Technical Leadership
- Serve as the technical lead for the AI platform engineering team — setting the implementation direction, defining coding standards, and making key technical decisions that govern how the platform is built and evolved.
- Lead code reviews and drive architecture discussions, ensuring engineering decisions are well-reasoned, documented, and aligned with the broader platform strategy — championing engineering standards across code quality, testing practices, documentation, observability, and security hardening.
- Act as a technical mentor and go-to resource for all engineers — sharing knowledge, unblocking complex problems, and actively investing in the technical growth of both senior and junior team members.
- Design, build, and operate scalable, high-performance services and platform components that expose AI/ML capabilities across Pandora's digital ecosystem.
- Own and define the standards and governance for Terraform-based Infrastructure as Code (IaC) — ensuring all Azure infrastructure is reproducible, auditable, and securely configured.
- Apply strong network architecture knowledge to design and govern secure connectivity between platform services, AI gateways, and external integrations, including VNet, private endpoints, NSGs, and ingress/egress controls, while collaborating with security stakeholders to uphold the platform's overall security posture.
- Integrate and operationalise AI services including LLM APIs, vector search, RAG pipelines, embeddings, and multi-layer caching into platform-level services.
- Lead the agentic code development practice: architecting autonomous execution loops that enable tools like Claude Code and GitHub Copilot to safely write, test, and self-correct software within isolated sandboxes.
- Own MLflow governance standards for experiment tracking, model versioning, and ML lifecycle management across the team.
- Configure and manage AI gateways to ensure secure, scalable, and governed access to AI capabilities at production scale.
- Define and govern the CI/CD standards for the AI platform team — establishing quality gates, testing frameworks, deployment patterns, and pipeline architecture that all engineers build to.
- Ensure performance, availability, and maintainability of platform services in production; handle incidents in a timely manner to minimise Mean Time to Contain (MTTC).
Education & Experience
- Relevant background from Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field with experience in backend or platform engineering, with at least 2 years operating in a technical leadership capacity within AI or cloud-native platform teams.
- Proven experience building and operating AI/ML platform services or LLM-based integrations in a production environment.
- Strong backend engineering fundamentals: service architecture, REST API design, performance optimisation, and production reliability by design and monitoring, with hands-on proficiency in Python.
Ideally you are a trusted technical leader who combines strong engineering expertise with clear thinking and a collaborative approach to drive sound decisions, communicate complex platform, security, and architecture topics in a business-friendly way, and foster team growth. Brings a proactive and curious mindset, with a passion for emerging AI technologies balanced by a pragmatic focus on execution and delivery.
About The Team
You will be part of Pandora's AI Platform team within AI CoE at Digital & Analytics & AI — a passionate, forward-thinking group dedicated to building the infrastructure and services that bring AI to life across the business. The team works at the intersection of data science, machine learning, cloud engineering, and product development, collaborating closely with ML Engineers, Data Scientists, AI Architects, and Product stakeholders.
You will report to the AI Platform Manager and serve as the senior technical voice that shapes how the platform is designed, secured, and evolved — influencing both what gets built and how it gets built.
About Pandora
Pandora is the world's largest jewellery brand, specialising in the design, crafting and marketing of accessible luxury jewellery made from high-quality materials. Each piece is created to inspire self-expression, allowing people to share their stories and passions through meaningful jewellery. Pandora jewellery is sold in more than 100 countries through 7,000 points of sale, including more than 2,800 concept stores.
Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, Pandora employs around 39,000 people worldwide and crafts its jewellery with 100% recycled silver and gold. Pandora is committed to leadership in sustainability and has set out to halve greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain by 2030. Pandora is listed on the Nasdaq Copenhagen stock exchange and generated revenue of DKK 32.5 billion (EUR 4.4 billion) in 2025.
Recognised by the Financial Times as one of Europe's Best Workplaces and ranked #1 among Danish companies, Pandora is committed to building an inclusive and diverse workplace.
Did We Get Your Attention?
Don't worry if you don't tick every box — we care more about the right mindset, a strong technical foundation, and a genuine passion for AI platform engineering than a perfect match on every requirement. If this role excites you, we would love to hear from you.
If you see yourself in this position and would like to become a part of Pandora's future, please do not hesitate to apply. We look forward to hearing from you! We process applications on a continuous basis, which is why we encourage you to send your application as soon as possible.
You can also read more about Pandora on our corporate site www.pandoragroup.com
Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, Pandora employs around 39,000 people worldwide and crafts its jewellery with 100% recycled silver and gold. Pandora is committed to leadership in sustainability and has set out to halve greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain by 2030. Pandora is listed on the Nasdaq Copenhagen stock exchange and generated revenue of DKK 32.5 billion (EUR 4.4 billion) in 2025.
Recognised by the Financial Times as one of Europe's Best Workplaces and ranked #1 among Danish companies, Pandora is committed to building an inclusive and diverse workplace.
Did We Get Your Attention?
Don't worry if you don't tick every box — we care more about the right mindset, a strong technical foundation, and a genuine passion for AI platform engineering than a perfect match on every requirement. If this role excites you, we would love to hear from you.
If you see yourself in this position and would like to become a part of Pandora's future, please do not hesitate to apply. We look forward to hearing from you! We process applications on a continuous basis, which is why we encourage you to send your application as soon as possible.
You can also read more about Pandora on our corporate site www.pandoragroup.com
This description is the source posting as it read when we added it. We are not affiliated with Pandora, so check their own site for the current details.
Where this offer sits in the market
SOC 2134 · UK · ONS ASHE 2025 · ~343k in sampleP25 £42kP75 £76k
£33kmedian £57kgoing rate £55k£103k
Similar sponsored roles
See all UK visa jobsNo close matches live right now.
Browse more sponsored jobs at PandoraAbout sponsorship for this role
Does this job guarantee visa sponsorship?
Not necessarily. Pandora holds a sponsor licence, but sponsorship for a specific hire is always the employer's decision. Be upfront in your application that you'll require it.
What salary is needed for this role to be eligible?
The offer must clear both the general threshold and the SOC 2134 going rate of £54,700. New-entrant and shortage discounts can lower it.