{"id":2368263,"url":"https://alion.io/job/boots-ai-engineering-lead","title":"AI Engineering Lead","company":{"id":1757026,"name":"Boots","domain":"boots.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/boots-com","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"BrassRing","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":82,"open_postings":32,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.906,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":7,"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Nottingham, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":77000,"max_usd":163000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":16},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AgentOps","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Copilot Studio","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-12T17:04:48Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-12","last_verified_at":"2026-10-13T07:03:08Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"Role: AI Engineering LeadContract: Permanent\nLocation: Nottingham, Beeston\nRecruitment Partner: Kershia Broughton\nWhat you'll be doing:\nAs the AI Engineering Lead at Boots, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of AI solutions within the organisation. You will provide technical leadership and establish engineering standards that ensure our AI applications are secure, scalable, and production-ready. Collaborating with various teams, you will help define how AI solutions are developed and deployed, making a significant impact on our operational efficiency and innovation.\nYou will be part of the AI Enablement team and play a key role in building and maturing Boots' AI engineering capability. Reporting to the Head of Smart Automation, the role will provide technical leadership across AI engineering, helping establish the standards, frameworks and practices required to enable the safe and scalable adoption of AI across the organisation.\nWorking closely with Architecture, Security, Data, Platform Engineering and delivery teams, the role will help define how AI solutions are developed, deployed, monitored and supported in production. The role will promote consistent engineering approaches while aligning with existing platform ownership, governance and control frameworks.\nKey responsibilities:\nDefine AI engineering standards, patterns, and best practices.\nEvolve the AI engineering roadmap and capability maturity.\nEstablish reusable frameworks, accelerators, and engineering assets.\nLead AI DevOps, deployment, monitoring, observability, and operational practices.\nSupport the design and delivery of AI solutions, agents and AI-enabled applications.\nCollaborate with Architecture, Security, and Governance teams to develop security, governance and responsible AI guardrails.\nMentor engineers and enhance AI engineering capability across the organisation.\nWhat you'll need to have (our must-haves):\nProven experience in software engineering, platform engineering, or AI engineering within a large enterprise environment.\nExperience designing, developing, and deploying AI or intelligent application solutions.\nStrong understanding of modern engineering practices, including CI/CD and DevOps and cloud-based platforms. \nExperience defining technical standards and reusable frameworks.\nExcellent communication and stakeholder management skills.\nExperience working with Architecture, Security, Data, and Engineering teams for delivery and integrations. \nUnderstanding of AI governance, responsible AI and enterprise security controls.\n Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to balance innovation, risk and operational requirements. \nIt would be great if you also have:\nExperience with Microsoft AI technologies, including Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry and Azure OpenAI.\nKnowledge of AI DevOps, AgentOps, or MLOps practices. \nExperience developing AI agents or AI-enabled business applications.\nRelevant cloud, AI, or engineering certifications.\nExperience working in retail, healthcare or other large, complex organisations.\nWhere your brilliance can take you:\nIn this role, you will have the opportunity to lead and mentor a team of engineers, driving innovation and excellence in AI engineering at Boots. As you develop your skills and expertise, you can explore various career pathways within the organisation, potentially advancing into senior leadership roles or specialised positions in AI and technology. Your contributions will not only shape the future of Boots but also enhance your professional growth.\nRewards designed for you:\nBoots Retirement Savings Plan\nDiscretionary annual bonus\nGenerous employee discounts\nEnhanced maternity/paternity/adoption leave pay and gift card for anyone expecting or adopting a child\nFlexible benefits scheme including option to buy additional holiday, discounted gym membership, life assurance, activity passes and much more.\nAccess to free, 24/7 counselling and support through TELUS Health, our Employee Assistance Programme.\nThere’s lots more in our benefits and discounts, MyBoosts - there to give you that little lift in your everyday. Find out more at http://boots.jobs/rewards. Exclusions may apply; eligible roles only. Please note that any salary estimates provided on third-party sites are not endorsed by Boots and may not be accurate.A bit about us:\nAt Boots, we're proud to be an equal opportunity employer, creating a place where everyone feels welcome, supported and free to be themselves. We believe that when our people feel valued and included, they thrive, so we're committed to creating a brilliant Boots for our people so they can make a difference for our customers and colleagues every time.\nWhat’s next?\nIf you apply, our team will be in touch to let you know the outcome of your application or to arrange next steps. Where a role is advertised as full-time, we are open to discussing part-time and job share options. If you require additional support as part of the application and interview process, we are happy to provide reasonable adjustments to help you be at your best.\nBoots is a Ban the Box employer and will consider the suitability of applicants with criminal convictions on a case-by-case basis.\nWe hope to hear from you soon.\nBe brilliant with Boots.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5269,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Gym membership","Retirement plans","Stock options"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Cosmetics & Makeup","Optometry & Optical Stores","Pharmacies"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-12T17:04:48Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":60,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.602,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":7,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/boots-ai-engineering-lead","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/boots-ai-engineering-lead.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-13T09:41:49Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":14715,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-14T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1757026},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1757026"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fboots-ai-engineering-lead"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fboots-ai-engineering-lead"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fboots-ai-engineering-lead"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/boots-ai-engineering-lead\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fboots-ai-engineering-lead"}]}