{"id":2539973,"url":"https://alion.io/job/network-finance-ai-product-engineering-lead-3","title":"AI Product Engineering Lead","company":{"id":3827505,"name":"Network Finance","domain":"networkfinanceinternational.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/network-finance","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":"jobmail.co.za","ats_vendor":null,"truth_index":{"grade":"C","score":58,"open_postings":584,"ghost_share":0.591,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0.755,"time_to_fill_p50_days":7,"computed_at":"2026-11-01T06:10:25Z"}},"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":["South Africa"],"countries":["ZA"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":1300000,"max":1400000,"currency":"ZAR","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":84913},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"A2A","optional":false},{"name":"Agile","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"ASP.NET Core","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"C#","optional":false},{"name":"Function Calling","optional":false},{"name":"Least Privilege","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-14T15:18:53Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-14","last_verified_at":"2026-10-14T15:18:53Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":null,"days_open":17,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":17},"description":"Our client is a leading technology organisation focused on automation, operational efficiency, and intelligent digital solutions. They have developed an innovative platform that helps organisations manage work, processes, knowledge, and operational outcomes through a single intelligent ecosystem.\nAs the AI Product Engineering Lead, you will take ownership of the product's AI capability and direction. This role offers a unique combination of strategic influence and hands-on technical delivery, giving you the opportunity to shape how AI is applied across business operations, process design, workflow optimisation, and organisational knowledge management.\nWorking closely with product owners and engineering teams, you will drive the AI roadmap, improve the reliability and effectiveness of AI solutions, and ensure meaningful business outcomes are achieved. This is an excellent opportunity for a technically strong AI professional who wants to influence product strategy while remaining actively involved in development and delivery.\nKey Responsibilities:\nOwn and drive the development of AI capabilities across execution, management, process design, and optimisation.\nPartner with product stakeholders to define AI strategy, delivery priorities, and product roadmap initiatives.\nBuild, test, and improve AI solutions while establishing team standards, governance, and quality frameworks.\nDiagnose and improve AI performance through evaluation, testing, and continuous optimisation.\nEnable secure access to organisational knowledge, business processes, policies, and historical operational data.\nMentor and develop the AI capability of the wider engineering team.\nCollaborate with users and business stakeholders to deliver meaningful AI-assisted and autonomous solutions.\nJob Experience and Skills Required:\nProven experience in a senior AI Engineering, AI Product Engineering, or AI Technical Leadership role.\nStrong commercial experience in C# / .NET (ASP.NET Core).\nProven experience building and delivering AI-enabled products within production environments.\nHands-on experience with Microsoft AI SDKs on Azure, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft.Extensions.AI and/or Microsoft Agent Framework, including tool and function calling in production.\nPractical experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol), agent evaluation, and making LLM capabilities reliable in a product environment.\nStrong understanding of business processes and the ability to translate operational requirements into practical AI solutions.\nExperience working with organisational knowledge, governance, permissions, and information management.\nExperience leading technical direction while remaining hands-on in delivery.\nAgent-to-agent / multi-agent coordination (A2A or equivalent).\nDesigning governed tool surfaces, including capability gating, least privilege, and auditability.\nFamiliarity with event-driven systems, such as Azure Service Bus.\nComfortable working within API-first product environments.\nStrong communication, stakeholder engagement, and problem-solving skills.\nExperience working within Agile product delivery environments.\nApply now!\nFor more exciting vacancies, please visit: www.networkrecruitmentinternational.com\nI also specialise in recruiting in the following:\nSoftware Developers (Back-End / Front-End / Full Stack)\nMobile Developers\nBusiness & Systems Analysts\nBI & SQL Experts\nUI / UX Professionals\nData & Analytics (Data Scientists, Data Analysts, Python, R, SQL, Machine Learning)\nAI & Automation (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Intelligent Automation, and Process Automation Solutions).\nCloud Experts\nInfrastructure Specialists\nDevOps / SecOps Experts\nCyber Security Specialists\nSEO / Digital Designers\nIf you have not had any response in two weeks, please consider the vacancy application unsuccessful. Your profile will be kept on our database for any other suitable roles / positions. \n\nFor more information, contact:\nFrankie Deppe\nSpecialist Recruitment Consultant\nConnect with me on LinkedIn!\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/frankie-deppe-9903b395/","description_format":"text","description_chars":4080,"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":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Recruiting & Staffing","Executive Search"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-14T15:18:53Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":14,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":0.85,"p_active":0.486,"p_room":0.35,"age_days":17,"expected_fill_days":7,"reasons":["seen:17","stale_co","wave","velocity","win:tail","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-01T06:10:25Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":84913,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/network-finance-ai-product-engineering-lead-3","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/network-finance-ai-product-engineering-lead-3.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-01T07:36:41Z","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":11708,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-02T00:00:00Z"}},"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":3827505},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3827505"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fnetwork-finance-ai-product-engineering-lead-3"},{"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%2Fnetwork-finance-ai-product-engineering-lead-3"},{"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%2Fnetwork-finance-ai-product-engineering-lead-3"},{"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/network-finance-ai-product-engineering-lead-3\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fnetwork-finance-ai-product-engineering-lead-3"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":2539973}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"networkfinanceinternational.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":2539973},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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