AI Lead Engineer - Melbourne - $220,000 - "Productionised" Enterprise Scale AI

AI Lead Engineer - Melbourne - $220,000 - "Productionised" Enterprise Scale AI - Employer of choice


Morgan Consulting are partnering with a highly respected, data driven organisation regarded as an employer of choice in Melbourne. Due to significant investment in AI, Machine Learning and Advanced Analytics capabilities, they are seeking an experienced AI Lead Engineer to join their team in a newly created leadership position.

This is a unique opportunity to lead the design and delivery of productionised, enterprise-scale AI solutions that directly impact millions of customers. Working within a high performing Data, AI and Technology function, you will help shape the future of AI engineering, establish best practice frameworks, and mentor engineering teams delivering cutting edge AI, Machine Learning and Generative AI capabilities. With a collaborative culture, strong executive sponsorship of AI initiatives, and a commitment to innovation, this role offers the chance to work on some of the most advanced AI projects currently being delivered in Australia.

About the Role

As the AI Lead Engineer, you will provide technical leadership across AI and Machine Learning engineering initiatives, partnering with Product, Architecture, Delivery and Platform teams to deliver scalable, secure and customer-centric AI solutions. You will define technical direction, establish engineering standards and guide delivery teams through the complete AI development lifecycle, from proof-of-concept through to enterprise production deployment. This role combines deep technical expertise with strategic leadership, making it ideal for a senior engineer who enjoys mentoring others while remaining hands-on with architecture and solution design.

What You Will Do

AI & Engineering Leadership

• Define and own the technical vision for AI and Machine Learning engineering initiatives.
• Lead architecture and solution design across data ingestion, feature engineering, model serving and AI application integration.
• Establish and champion engineering standards, coding practices, testing frameworks and deployment patterns.
• Drive continuous improvement across AI engineering capabilities and delivery practices.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to senior stakeholders across the business.

AI Solution Design & Delivery

• Work closely with architects, platform teams and delivery leaders to define optimal technical solutions.
• Lead POCs, technical spikes and innovation initiatives to validate new technologies and approaches.
• Design scalable AI powered applications and services leveraging modern cloud-native architectures.
• Evaluate and implement technologies supporting Machine Learning operations, LLM orchestration and AI application development.
• Ensure AI solutions align with enterprise architecture principles and long term platform strategy.

Machine Learning & Generative AI

• Lead the design and implementation of enterprise scale AI and Machine Learning solutions.
• Drive best practices for model development, deployment, monitoring and lifecycle management.
• Oversee evaluation frameworks, observability strategies and performance optimisation for AI systems.
• Guide teams building advanced AI applications including RAG based solutions and large language model integrations.
• Champion Responsible AI principles including fairness, transparency, security and privacy.

Quality & Engineering Excellence

• Conduct architecture reviews, design assessments and code reviews to ensure technical excellence.
• Establish quality assurance processes across AI and software engineering teams.
• Promote CI/CD, automated testing, DevOps and engineering best practices.
• Ensure all solutions meet agreed performance, scalability and reliability standards.
• Drive continuous improvement across technical delivery practices.

Coaching & Mentoring

• Mentor senior engineers and technical teams to elevate engineering capability across the organisation.
• Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration and technical excellence.
• Support engineers in adopting modern AI development tools, frameworks and methodologies.
• Contribute to the broader AI and Machine Learning engineering leadership community.

What You Will Bring

• Extensive experience leading software engineering, AI engineering or machine learning teams within a large-scale environment.
• Strong application development expertise in Python and/or Java.
• Proven experience designing and delivering production grade AI and Machine Learning solutions.
• Deep understanding of the ML development lifecycle including feature engineering, deployment and monitoring.
• Strong experience with Databricks and modern data platforms.
• Experience designing and delivering complex Generative AI and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions.
• Strong understanding of AI application frameworks such as LangChain and LlamaIndex.
• Expertise in API design, microservices and event-driven architectures.
• Experience with containerisation technologies such as Docker.
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD practices and DevOps methodologies.
• Experience building cloud native solutions in AWS.
• Proven capability leading technical architecture and engineering decisions across multiple delivery teams.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement, consulting and communication skills.
• Passion for mentoring, coaching and uplifting engineering capability.

Highly Regarded

• Expertise across machine learning algorithms, deep learning and advanced modelling techniques.
• Experience establishing AI engineering practices within enterprise environments.
• Experience implementing AI observability, monitoring and evaluation frameworks.
• Exposure to modern engineering tools leveraging AI assisted development.
• Experience influencing technical strategy within large, product-focused organisations.

Why Join?

• Work on productionised AI solutions at genuine enterprise scale.
• Lead some of the most exciting AI and Data initiatives currently being delivered in Australia.
• Join a recognised employer of choice with a strong engineering culture.
• Partner with senior technology leaders driving significant AI investment.
• Opportunity to shape engineering standards and technical direction across the organisation.
• Strong focus on innovation, continuous learning and career progression.
• Hybrid Melbourne based permanent opportunity.
• $220,000 package.

If you are a senior AI Engineering leader with a passion for building scalable AI solutions, mentoring high performing teams and delivering real world enterprise AI outcomes, we would love to hear from you.