AI Engineering Lead

About the role

Laing O'Rourke, a global engineering and manufacturing-led construction group, is looking for an AI Engineering Lead to join its IT team at the North Sydney or Brisbane head office. The role leads the technical delivery of complex AI, machine learning and generative AI solutions across the Australian business, using Databricks, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Copilot Studio, and guides AI initiatives from early experimentation through to supported production.

Key responsibilities

• Design, prototype, build, test, deploy and troubleshoot AI, machine learning and generative AI solutions on Databricks and Azure, applying acceptance and exit criteria.
• Diagnose and resolve complex AI, data, performance and integration issues, escalating risks outside your authority.
• Advise teams on solution patterns and recommend simpler, safer or more cost-effective alternatives; apply engineering standards, reference architectures and guardrails.
• Design and review Microsoft Copilot Studio solutions, advise on their suitability, and coach teams on development and troubleshooting.
• Translate business priorities into technical workplans, and ensure solutions meet enterprise architecture, cyber security, privacy, data governance and responsible AI requirements.
• Mentor teams, share reusable components and lessons learned, and escalate security, privacy, architectural, cost or operational risks to the Senior Data Architect.

Required profile

• Substantial experience designing, building and delivering AI or machine learning solutions in complex enterprise environments, with recent hands-on delivery.
• Experience leading complex technical workstreams and coordinating contributors across multidisciplinary teams, vendors or partners.
• Experience converting prototypes into secure, monitored and supportable production services.
• Experience with MLOps, observability, model and prompt versioning, automated testing and lifecycle management, and architecture and code reviews.

Required skills

• Databricks AI and machine learning, including MLflow, model lifecycle management, model serving and generative AI patterns.
• Microsoft Azure and secure cloud integration.
• Microsoft Copilot Studio, including knowledge sources, actions, connectors and integrations.
• Evaluating large language models on quality, safety, reliability, latency and cost.

What we offer

• In-house training and on-the-job development.
• Six months' paid parental leave at full pay.
• Purchased leave options and volunteering leave.
• Discounts and savings across hundreds of Australian retailers.