Principal AI Engineer - Microsoft Azure AI Foundry (Contract)

Principal AI Engineer - Microsoft Azure AI Foundry 12 Month Contract Who We Are We’re on a mission to close the world’s tech skills gap. We help organisations navigate the future of technology, combining human expertise, emerging tech and AI to deliver better outcomes, faster. Since 2014, we’ve worked side-by-side with clients to solve complex challenges, build high-performing teams, and create lasting capability. As technology continues to evolve, we believe the most successful organisations will be those that combine the best of both: human ingenuity AND intelligent technology. That belief is embedded in everything we do. We call it the genius of the AND: deep expertise AND practical delivery, innovation AND responsibility, ambitious work AND sustainable careers. Through our Guide, Build and Equip approach, we help organisations embrace change, deliver meaningful impact, and develop the skills they need to thrive in an increasingly agentic world. Role Overview We are seeking an experienced Principal AI Engineer to architect and deliver an enterprise-grade Microsoft Azure AI Foundry platform. The role will establish the foundational architecture, governance, security, scalability and cost-management capabilities required to support production AI and agentic workflows across the organisation. You will operate at a senior technical level, working across Azure infrastructure, AI platform engineering, security, MLOps, FinOps and AI engineering teams to create a secure, scalable and reusable AI platform. The successful candidate will combine deep Azure architecture expertise with hands-on experience of enterprise AI platforms and will play a key role in defining the technical standards and patterns for AI adoption. Key Responsibilities Platform Architecture Architect and design scalable, resilient Azure AI Foundry environments aligned to enterprise cloud architecture and Azure Landing Zone principles. Design the integration of Azure AI Foundry with Azure OpenAI Service, model catalogues, prompt flows, AI Search, vector databases and custom AI tooling. Define reusable architecture patterns for AI workloads, including development, testing and production environments. Establish platform standards covering resource structure, environments, deployment patterns, observability and operational management. Work closely with AI Engineers to design and deliver AI Agents and agentic workflows that meet business and technical requirements. Governance, Risk & Compliance Establish enterprise governance frameworks for AI workloads across Azure. Define and implement Azure Policy, RBAC, resource controls and access-management standards. Implement content safety and responsible-AI guardrails across AI workloads. Establish model and prompt evaluation frameworks to support quality, safety and performance assessment. Ensure comprehensive audit logging, monitoring and traceability across AI platform components. Contribute to organisational standards for AI security, governance and responsible AI adoption. Security & Networking Design secure Azure AI architectures covering both control-plane and data-plane security. Implement Private Endpoints, VNets, Managed Identities and Microsoft Entra ID to secure AI services and associated data. Apply zero-trust principles to AI workloads, APIs, data sources and platform services. Define identity, authentication and authorisation patterns for AI applications, agents and platform users. Ensure AI services are integrated into existing enterprise security and networking architectures. Scale, Resilience & Performance Design resilient, highly available and, where required, multi-region AI deployment architectures. Manage Azure OpenAI and AI platform capacity, including API rate limits, quotas and Provisioned Throughput Units (PTUs). Design architectures optimised for low-latency inference and reliable production workloads. Establish performance monitoring, capacity planning and scaling strategies. Define disaster recovery and business continuity patterns for critical AI services. Cost Management & FinOps Establish cost-management frameworks for enterprise AI workloads. Implement chargeback/showback models, resource tagging and cost allocation strategies. Monitor and optimise AI consumption, including token usage and model utilisation. Establish budgets, alerts, quotas and resource controls to manage consumption-based AI costs. Work with engineering and finance stakeholders to identify opportunities to optimise AI platform expenditure without compromising performance or service quality. MLOps, Automation & Platform Engineering Design and implement automated deployment pipelines for AI platform components and workloads. Establish CI/CD processes using Azure DevOps and/or GitHub Actions. Automate infrastructure provisioning and configuration using Bicep, Terraform or ARM templates. Build automated processes for prompt-flow evaluation, model deployment, testing and release management. Establish platform observability covering availability, performance, usage, cost and AI workload health. Experience 5+ years' experience in Azure cloud architecture, engineering or platform engineering. 1–2+ years' experience specifically focused on enterprise AI/ML platform engineering. Proven experience working on large-scale or enterprise Azure environments. Experience operating at Principal, Lead, Staff or equivalent senior technical level. Strong track record of translating business and technical requirements into enterprise architecture. Experience working collaboratively with AI Engineers, Cloud Engineers, Security, DevOps and Architecture teams. Certifications – Preferred One or more of the following certifications would be advantageous: Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-102) Key Competencies The successful candidate will demonstrate: Exceptional Azure architecture and technical leadership skills. Strong understanding of enterprise security and cloud governance. Ability to translate emerging AI capabilities into production-ready enterprise architectures. Hands-on engineering capability alongside strategic architectural thinking. Strong understanding of AI platform scalability, reliability and cost optimisation. Ability to establish technical standards, patterns and governance frameworks. Excellent communication skills, with the ability to engage technical and non-technical stakeholders. A pragmatic, delivery-focused approach to enterprise AI adoption. Why join AND Digital? We’re building a culture where talented people can do meaningful work, continue growing, AND enjoy the journey along the way. Our model is designed to build belonging and connection: we’re organised into regional ‘Clubs’ of no more than 80 people, so you (and our clients) get the benefits of that small company feel while also being connected to a larger whole. Our Practice Areas act as a ‘second home’ for our ANDis - a place where you can innovate and learn with like-minded experts who care deeply about their craft, support each other generously, and believe the best ideas come from collaboration, not hierarchy. Our culture is rooted in our values of Wonder, Share and Delight, and shows up through five traits that we celebrate and nurture in all our ANDis: we value curiosity, ambition and a growth-mindset. We are deeply client-centric. Most important of all we are human - we create an inclusive environment where people feel trusted, supported and able to be themselves. By joining AND, we’ll provide: 25 days bookable holiday + flexible Bank Holidays Pension: 6% of salary paid by AND Digital with a further 2% paid by you (can be increased by choice). Aviva healthcare cover (including pre-existing condition cover) for you. Flexibenefit: £1000 assigned to you via our benefits portal to select or upgrade the benefits that suit you the most. Any unused allowance from the £1000 can be taken as cash. Life Assurance. Income Protection. Eye test + first pair of glasses. Parental Benefits: Generous Enhanced Maternity and Enhanced Partner (Paternity) Leave. Equal Opportunities Statement Diversity and inclusion are hugely important to us, and we’re committed to providing equal opportunities for all. We’re actively recruiting for a diverse and inclusive workforce so want to ensure we do everything we can to support your application. We want you to feel safe and empowered to let us know if you need any adjustments to be made to your application or interview process, so please speak to our recruitment team. AI Statement We champion tech that helps people work smarter, but we want to get to know you! If you use AI to assist with your application or interview prep, please ensure all information submitted remains an accurate, truthful representation of your personal achievements and capabilities rather than generating false or misleading information. We may reject applications where AI is used inappropriately at any stage of the recruitment process.