Description:
As part of this mission, we are seeking an Chief Engineer, API and AI Platforms to lead the design, build, and evolution of our API infrastructure and Agentic AI workflow platform. This role combines hands-on technical leadership with product-oriented engineering, operating at the intersection of platform engineering, APIs, cloud, and AI.
You will be responsible for building scalable, secure, and cloud-agnostic platforms that enable:
- External and internal consumers to discover, subscribe to, and use APIs
- Agentic AI workflows that orchestrate models, tools, and enterprise systems safely
- Strong governance, security, and CI/CD automation from day one
This is a player-coach role: you will architect and code critical components, while also leading and growing high-performing engineering teams.
Key Responsibilities:
Platform & Architecture Leadership
- Lead the end-to-end engineering of an API platform, including:
- API onboarding, publishing, discovery, versioning, and deprecation
- Developer portals, API products, plans, entitlements, and subscriptions
- Runtime enforcement via API Gateway and policy engines
- Design and build Agentic AI workflows, including:
- Orchestration of LLMs, tools, and enterprise APIs
- RAG pipelines, context engineering, and model routing
- Secure tool invocation and workflow governance (e.g., approvals, kill-switches)
- Define reference architectures that are cloud-agnostic, scalable, and compliant
Hands-On Engineering
- Remain deeply hands-on in:
- Backend services (API layers, orchestration services, control planes)
- Platform components (gateways, policy engines, workflow engines)
- AI integration layers (LLM adapters, tool interfaces, retrieval services)
- Has experiences with APIM, iPaaS etc.
- Set and uphold engineering standards for:
- Code quality, testing, observability, and resilience
- Secure coding and dependency management
- Review designs and code with a pragmatic, outcome-driven mindset
CI/CD, DevSecOps & Platform Automation
- Own and evolve CI/CD pipelines for platform and AI workloads, including:
- Automated builds, tests, security scans, and deployments
- Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and environment automation
- Embed DevSecOps practices:
- Shift-left security, SAST/DAST, SBOMs, secrets management
- Policy enforcement and compliance checks in pipelines
- Enable safe, fast iteration for API and AI product teams
Product & Stakeholder Collaboration
- Partner closely with Product Management, Architecture, Security, and Data teams
- Translate product and business goals into clear technical roadmaps
- Balance time-to-market with long-term platform sustainability
- Act as a technical authority and trusted advisor to senior stakeholders
People Leadership
- Lead, mentor, and grow senior engineers and technical leads
- Foster a culture of:
- Engineering excellence
- Ownership and accountability
- Continuous learning and improvement
- Support hiring and onboarding of high-calibre platform and AI engineers
Required Experience & Skills:
Core Engineering Experience
- 10+ years in software engineering, with recent experience in platform or product engineering
- Strong background in API-first design and distributed systems
- Proven experience building platforms used by multiple teams or external consumers
API & Integration Expertise
- Deep understanding of:
- API Gateway & API Management concepts
- REST, event-driven APIs, and OpenAPI specifications
- API security (OAuth2, OIDC, mTLS, rate limiting, quotas)
- Experience building or operating API marketplaces or developer platforms is highly desirable
Agentic AI & Modern AI Platforms
- Hands-on experience with LLM-based systems, including:
- RAG architectures
- Prompt and context engineering
- Tool / function calling and workflow orchestration
- Familiarity with agentic AI patterns (planners, executors, tool routers)
- Strong appreciation of AI governance, safety, and observability
Cloud & DevOps
- Strong experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP, or hybrid)
- Practical knowledge of:
- Containers and Kubernetes
- CI/CD tooling (e.g., GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, Jenkins)
- Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, ARM, CloudFormation)
- Understanding of cloud-agnostic design principles
Leadership & Mindset
- Comfortable operating at Associate Director level, balancing strategy and execution
- Able to zoom in and out: from whiteboard architecture to production debugging
- Strong communication skills — able to explain complex systems clearly
- Product-oriented mindset with a bias toward customer and developer experience
Nice to Have:
- Experience with API monetisation, entitlements, or licensing models
- Exposure to AI marketplaces or AI-enabled SaaS platforms
- Experience in regulated industries (financial services, Open Banking, healthcare, energy, etc.)
- Familiarity with standards such as OpenTelemetry, OPA, or policy-driven architectures