AI Engineer

Manchester Based

Hybrid Role

We're seeking a pragmatic and highly skilled AI Engineer to join a fast-growing FinTech company as their first dedicated AI hire. This is a rare opportunity to build AI capability from the ground up in a business that processes payments for leading global brands.

This is an AI engineering role focused on creating the secure infrastructure that enables enterprise-grade AI agents to interact safely with production payment systems.

You'll be designing and implementing the company's Model Context Protocol (MCP) capability - essentially building the bridge between modern AI agents (ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor) and critical business operations, while maintaining the security, compliance and reliability standards expected of financial technology.

The Role

-As the founding AI Engineer, you'll be responsible for:

-Designing and building the company's MCP server framework aligned to open standards

-Creating AI-accessible API operations (refunds, gateway configuration, etc.) with strict permissioning and security guardrails

-Implementing authentication, authorisation, logging, and full auditability for all AI agent interactions

-Building and operating the AI knowledge retrieval layer using vector databases

-Implementing hybrid semantic/lexical search capabilities

-Monitoring, testing, and optimising performance, reliability, and failure modes Establishing standards and patterns for future embedded AI capabilities

-Shaping the company's AI strategy from an infrastructure and tooling perspective

-Building internal AI capability and maintaining technical documentation

-Working cross-functionally to integrate AI in ways that enhance developer productivity and internal operations

Essential Experience

-Backend engineering background with production-level experience designing and operating APIs and platform services

-Hands-on LLM integration - practical experience working with OpenAI, Claude, Cursor, Gemini, or similar agent-based AI systems

-Experience with vector databases and modern search technologies

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