Lead AI Software Engineer
- Hiring from
- United Kingdom
- Work type
- Hybrid
- Posted
- Oct 4, 2026
At Vodafone, we’re working hard to build a better future. A more connected, inclusive and sustainable world. As a dynamic global community, it's our human spirit, together with technology, that empowers us to achieve this.
We challenge and innovate in order to connect people, businesses, and communities across the world. Delighting our customers and earning their loyalty drive us, and we experiment, learn fast and get it done, together.
With us, you can be truly be yourself and belong, share inspiration, embrace new opportunities, thrive, and make a real difference.
Who we are
About this Role
Location: Newbury or Paddington (hybrid)
What you will do
- Lead build execution within a squad, platform capability, or engineering domain.
- Translate specifications, designs, and architectural intent into clear implementation plans and verifiable engineering tasks.
- Decompose solution designs into small, sequenced, testable delivery increments.
- Guide engineers and AI coding agents through implementation, validation, and release activities.
- Deliver and oversee complex, high-risk, or business-critical software components.
- Review AI-generated and engineer-written code to ensure correctness, maintainability, security, and alignment with specifications.
- Drive engineering excellence through automated testing, contract testing, regression testing, observability, and production verification.
- Support CI/CD processes, deployment readiness, operational handover, runbooks, and service ownership.
- Ensure AI-generated outputs are explainable, traceable, secure, and compliant with engineering standards.
- Escalate architectural ambiguity, cross-domain risks, and decisions beyond agreed engineering guardrails.
- Identify recurring engineering or AI-agent delivery issues and transform them into improved controls, guidance, and quality practices.
- Coach engineers on AI-native software engineering, implementation planning, code review, testing practices, and responsible AI usage.
- Contribute to the evolution of AI-native Software Development Life Cycle practices, developer experience, automation, and engineering productivity.
Who you are
- Significant experience delivering production-grade software within complex engineering environments.
- Strong hands-on expertise in Java and Spring Boot, with experience in React or Angular.
- Proven experience designing and implementing RESTful APIs, microservices, integrations, platform services, and digital applications.
- Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures, distributed systems, containerised environments, and modern integration patterns.
- Experience building event-driven solutions using technologies such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, or equivalent platforms.
- Demonstrated ability to lead software implementation within agile engineering teams or technical domains.
- Experience with CI/CD, continuous delivery practices, automated testing frameworks, observability, and production support.
- Ability to convert specifications, acceptance criteria, and architectural designs into actionable implementation plans and verified software.
- Strong code review and diff-review capability, including validation of AI-generated software outputs.
- Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools and effectively steering AI coding agents.
- Understanding of responsible AI practices, including validation, security, traceability, governance, and quality assurance.
- Excellent stakeholder engagement, coaching, collaboration, and communication skills.
- Strong focus on software quality, resilience, operational readiness, and continuous improvement.
What’s in it for you
- Opportunity to shape and deliver next-generation digital and technology capabilities that support Vodafone’s future growth.
- Exposure to AI-native engineering practices and modern software delivery methodologies.
- Opportunity to work on cloud-native platforms, reusable services, APIs, integrations, and large-scale digital products.
- Collaboration with highly skilled engineers, architects, platform specialists, and product teams across global markets.
- Involvement in modern engineering disciplines including automation, continuous delivery, observability, and platform engineering.
- Ability to influence engineering standards, software quality, delivery practices, and operational excellence.
What skills you will learn
- Advanced AI-native engineering and AI-agent orchestration techniques.
- Large-scale cloud-native software architecture and distributed systems practices.
- Modern software delivery frameworks, automation strategies, and developer productivity improvements.
- Advanced observability, operational readiness, and production engineering capabilities.
- Enterprise-scale implementation planning, architecture alignment, and engineering governance.
- Coaching, mentoring, and technical leadership skills within multi-disciplinary engineering environments.
VOIS Equal Opportunity Employer Commitment
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Vodafone is committed to attracting, developing and retaining the very best people by offering a motivating and inclusive workplace in which talent is truly recognised and rewarded. We are committed to promoting Inclusion for All with the belief that diversity plays an important role in the success of our business. We actively encourage everyone to consider becoming a part of our journey.