AI Engineering Lead

Recruiter:

Network Recruitment

Job Ref:

ITE008134/Mon

Date posted:

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

Location:

Johannesburg, South Africa

Salary:

Annually

SUMMARY:

The AI Engineering Lead will be responsible for leading the design, development, deployment, and optimization of artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions across the organization. This role combines technical leadership, hands-on development, and strategic oversight to drive innovation and deliver scalable AI-powered products and solutions that support business objectives.

POSITION INFO:
The role: Lead a compact AI engineering team hands-on:Â Must have: Deep LLM integration, voice-pipeline (STT\/TTS) and text-agent experience, Python, API design, GitHub-based team workflow, production AI systems at scale, people leadership of small engineering teams. Nice to have: Telephony platforms, collections or fintech domain, Azure, Kubernetes\/Docker, CI\/CD, Hugging Face ecosystem, eval frameworks. Key Responsibilities: Develop and implement AI Strategies aligned with business objectives.Â Establish AI engineering standards, governance and best practicesÂ Design develop and deploy AI, machine learning and generative AI solutionsÂ Oversee the end-to-end AI lifecycle from development to deployment and monitoring. Implement MLOps practices to support efficient model deployment and maintenance.Â Evaluate and adopt AI tools, frameworks and cloud technologies. Job Experience and Skill Required: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field (Masters Preferred). 8+ years of software engineering or machine learning experience. 3+ years in a technical leadership or management role. Proven experience delivering enterprise-scale AI and machine learning solutions. Demonstrated experience working in cloud environments (Azure). Strong proficiency in Python and AI\/ML frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, and LangChain. Experience with Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and AI Agents. Strong understanding of machine learning algorithms, NLP, deep learning, and data modeling. Familiarity with vector databases, API development, and microservices architecture. Â Apply now! Â For more IT jobs, please visit \/>Â I also specialise in recruiting in the following: Â Software Development Data Engineer Data Analyst Infrastructure Architecture ... and more! Â If 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. Â For more information contact:Â Monica de WetÂ Senior Recruitment ConsultantÂ

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