AI Practice Lead
Zensar · London
Engineering Foundation
Non-negotiable. This is what we screen on first, and there is no AI in it.
Data modelling across SQL and NoSQL, and a clear view of where each one breaks
Event-driven architecture in production with Kafka, RabbitMQ or equivalent. Ordering, replay, idempotency, dead-letter handling
Distributed systems failure modes: partial failure, retries, backpressure, timeouts, circuit breakers
Caching strategy and invalidation, at a scale where getting it wrong hurt
Observability. You have instrumented a system, not just read someone else's dashboard
At least one cloud deeply. Not three superficially
API and integration patterns against real enterprise surfaces such as ERPs, CRMs and data platforms
CI/CD, containers, release engineering
You have owned something in production. On-call, incidents, the whole thing
Agent systems are distributed systems with a non-deterministic component in the middle. If the fundamentals are not there, the AI layer does not survive contact with production.
At Zensar, we’re “experience-led everything”. We are committed to conceptualizing, designing, engineering, marketing, and managing digital solutions and experiences for over 130 leading enterprises. We are a company driven by a bold purpose: Together, we shape experiences for better futures. Whether for our clients, our people, or the world around us, this belief powers everything we do. At the heart of our culture is ONE with Client - a set of four core values that reflect who we are and how we work: One Zensar, Nurturing, Empowering, and Client Focus.Part of the $4.8 billion RPG Group, we’re a community of 10,000+ innovators across 30+ global locations, including Milpitas, Seattle, Princeton, Cape Town, London, Zurich, Singapore, and Mexico City. Explore Life at Zensar and join us to Grow. Own. Achieve. Learn. to be the best version of yourself.
We believe the best work happens when individuality is celebrated, growth is encouraged, and well-being is prioritized. We are an equal employment opportunity (EEO) and affirmative action employer, committed to creating an inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, creed, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, marital status, family medical leave status, or protected veteran status. This is not a slide-making or prompt-engineering role. We are looking for someone who has built systems that run in production, not demos, not pilots that died after a sprint, and who can sit across the table from a client CTO and tell them what to do next. Two halves, and we mean both. You will architect and deliver AI-native programs end to end. You will also carry a point of view on where this market is going, walk clients through it, and help them stand up their own AI capability covering practice structure, operating model, tooling and governance. You will report into and replicate the function of a senior AI delivery leader. That means the depth to design the system, the hands to build it, and the presence to defend it in a room full of executives. At 12 to 15 years, we are not looking for someone whose engineering career started with LLMs. We want the years before that: the production systems, the outages, the architecture calls that turned out wrong and what you learned.