AI Software Engineering Lead - Hands-On, Cloud-native

Software Engineering Lead (AI)

Location: Cork, Ireland (on-site)
Type: Full-time, Permanent

About the company
A fast-growing, IDA-backed industrial technology company building out its engineering presence in Cork. The business operates at the forefront of emerging technology, with AI already shipping in production across its platform - not early-stage experimentation.

About the role
We're looking for a hands-on Software Engineering Lead to run our AI engineering function. This is a technical leadership role, not a purely managerial one - you'll still be writing code, running PoCs, and validating architecture, while setting technical direction, hiring the team, and raising the engineering bar across the group.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical direction of a high-impact AI engineering team, staying hands-on
• Design and deliver cloud-native, container-first services built to scale
• Take AI-enabled capabilities from early exploration through to secure, production deployments
• Write high-quality Python code and define the engineering bar for maintainability and testing
• Drive good engineering practices across CI/CD, containerisation, Kubernetes, and cloud operations
• Play a central role in hiring and building the team
• Mentor and coach engineers through reviews, pairing, and technical feedback

Requirements

• Strong professional software engineering background (typically 10+ years, though impact and evidence of delivery matter more than a specific number)
• Proven technical leadership - leading design discussions, mentoring, setting direction
• Strong Python engineering skills: OOP, typing, async programming, FastAPI preferred
• Demonstrated experience building REST APIs and service integrations
• Cloud experience on at least one hyperscaler (Azure preferred), with strong container experience
• Kubernetes experience strongly preferred
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices
• Strong testing discipline (PyTest) and code review habits
• Understanding of AuthN/AuthZ fundamentals (OpenID/OAuth2)

Nice to have

• Experience building with Generative AI or Agentic AI frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, Hugging Face)
• Familiarity with event-driven architecture
• Azure platform depth (Cosmos DB, serverless)
• Interest in modern AI concepts (transformers, attention, deep learning foundations)

GCS is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.