{"id":1485385,"url":"https://alion.io/job/salt-group-lead-ai-engineer","title":"Group Lead AI Engineer","company":{"id":1935342,"name":"Salt","domain":"welovesalt.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/welovesalt","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":true,"employer_type":"agency","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":null,"truth_index":{"grade":"C","score":64,"open_postings":1440,"ghost_share":0.603,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-09-30T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Cape Town, South Africa"],"countries":["ZA"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":1500000,"max":2500000,"currency":"ZAR","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":152488},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"A/B Testing","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"LightGBM","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"Scikit-learn","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":false},{"name":"XGBoost","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-03-20T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-03-20","last_verified_at":"2026-09-29T22:22:26Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":195,"trust":{"level":"ghost","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale","company_stale"],"days_open":194},"description":"Back to all jobs\nApplications are now closed.\nGroup Lead AI Engineer\nRef: JO-2512-357892\nSouth Africa, Cape Town \n\nData, AI and Machine Learning, Technology \n\nIT \n\n5,000+ Employees \n\nZAR 1,500,000.00 - ZAR 2,500,000.00 per annum \n\nEnvironment:\n\nHybrid \n\nContract Type:\n\nPermanent \n\nStarts:\n\n2026-04-01 \n\nLead AI Engineer\nLocation: Cape Town · Keywords: AI Jobs, Lead ML Engineer Jobs, LLM Jobs, Data Jobs, MLOps Jobs\nPerks: Hybrid work, global remit, strategic impact, ownership of domains\nWho You’ll Be Joining\nPicture a global consumer brand with millions of daily interactions and a digital ecosystem that stretches across continents. They’re scaling AI fast - responsibly, thoughtfully, and with a clear focus on business impact, not hype.\nAnd that’s where you come in. They need a Lead AI Engineer who can set direction, own domains, guide others, and make sure the big, important stuff actually ships - safely, reliably, and with measurable results.\nWhat You’ll Be Doing\nAs a Lead AI Engineer, you’re the one steering the most complex, high-impact work. You’ll still build things hands-on, but you’ll also be the person others come to for architectural decisions, delivery strategy, and coaching.\nYou’ll get to:\nOwn one or more AI domains end-to-end (e.g., personalisation, optimisation, digital coaching - whatever your sweet spot is).\nSet the technical direction for your space: architecture, modelling approach, evaluation strategy, reliability expectations.\nBuild and ship AI systems from idea all the way to production - and ensure they stay healthy once they’re there.\nLead discovery, experiments, A/B tests, and scoping sessions, turning fuzzy business questions into a structured, prioritised roadmap.\nWork with digital, data, and commercial teams across regions to align AI efforts and make smart trade-offs.\nBuild reusable templates, pipelines, APIs, and patterns that others can build on.\nCoach other engineers, guide modelling decisions, and review work to keep quality consistently high.\nEstablish ways of working for your domain and influence how AI engineering operates across the organisation.\nBecome a trusted technical counterpart for senior stakeholders.\nChampion safe, ethical, privacy-aware AI practices.\nIf you love solving hard problems, influencing strategy, mentoring others, and still getting stuck into code, this role was basically designed for you.\nWho You Are\nYou don’t have to tick every box - but if you’re operating at a senior/lead level in ML, data science, or software engineering, and you care deeply about building real AI products, you’re likely a great fit.\nYou’ll thrive if:\nYou’ve spent around 10+ years building and shipping AI/ML systems (not just prototypes).\nYou’ve led delivery of complex AI initiatives, including coordinating other engineers or partners.\nYou’ve shaped an AI/ML roadmap before, or played a major role in one.\nPython + SQL are your everyday tools, and you write production-grade code.\nYou’re comfortable making system-level decisions: architecture, latency, observability, fallbacks, governance.\nYou have experience with ML frameworks (scikit-learn, XGBoost, PyTorch, TensorFlow, LightGBM).\nYou know your way around LLMs, RAG, prompt design, tuning, and evaluation.\nYou can review pipelines, data work, and MLOps architectures with confidence.\nYou’re fluent in cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, or GCP all welcome).\nYou handle ambiguity well and can shape direction for yourself and others.\nYou communicate clearly and calmly with non-technical audiences.\nYou actively mentor and love raising team standards.\nYou care about responsible AI, security, privacy, and long-term sustainability.\nYou’re comfortable pushing back when an idea isn’t viable - and suggesting a better path.\nIn short: you’re a calm, capable problem-solver who knows how to lead people, technology, and outcomes.\nWhy This Role Stands Out\nThis isn’t a “write a model and hand it off” role. You’ll influence the roadmap, shape architecture, guide other engineers, and deliver solutions used across multiple international markets.\nYou’ll get:\nGlobal scope and complex, interesting datasets\nA seat at the table in shaping AI strategy for your domain\nOwnership of big initiatives and the chance to materially impact the business\nA modern stack with room to introduce new tools and patterns\nA collaborative, low-ego team that genuinely values engineering excellence\nSupport for deep dives, experiments, and staying ahead of the LLM/AI curve\nFlexibility, autonomy, and opportunities to grow into broader leadership roles\nIf you want to actually shape how AI works in a global organisation - not just build one-off models - this is the place to do it.\nSalt is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4746,"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":["Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"South Africa","iso":"ZA","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-29T22:15:35Z"}],"liveness":{"score":4,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.13,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":194,"expected_fill_days":39,"reasons":["conf:7","agency","stale_co","urgency","ghost","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-09-30T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":152488,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/salt-group-lead-ai-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/salt-group-lead-ai-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-01T04:42:26Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4210,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":790,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-02T00:00:00Z"}}}