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Principal Architect – AI

On-site in London·Full-time·Added 2 days ago (last checked 19 Oct)

Leonardo UK

341 open roles

Overview

Work mode
On-site, London
Contract
Full-time
Experience
Senior level
Holiday
25 days holiday
Commute
Season ticket loan

Skills

Requirements

Nice to have

  • Experience in a security-focused or highly regulated product company (Becrypt's

own domain).

  • Prior experience introducing AI/agentic capability into an existing engineering

organisation from scratch.

  • Familiarity with data-centre/on-prem as well as cloud (AWS) deployment models.

Pay & benefits

What you'll get

  • 25 days annual leave plus an additional 2 days after 2 years' service
  • 5 days additional holiday purchase available
  • Private medical insurance
  • Heath cashback plan with Healthshield
  • Pension scheme
  • Life cover 4 x salary
  • Season ticket loan
  • Salary exchange benefits (ride2work, pension)
  • Subsidised gym membership
  • Employee referral scheme

Role will be subject to an employment screening process and will require security

clearance.

The role

Becrypt is creating a new, standalone Principal Architect - AI role to lead the

organisation's approach to artificial intelligence across the business. This is a senior

technical position for someone who can look across engineering, product, IT and

operations to identify where AI can genuinely improve how Becrypt builds, secures and

runs its platforms - and who can then design, build and govern the systems that make

that possible.

This is not a team-management role. It is a hands-on, principal-level individual

contributor position for someone who leads through technical depth, credibility and

influence - working closely with engineering teams, technical architects and internal IT,

and setting the policies, risk frameworks and compliance guardrails needed to adopt AI

responsibly.

What you'll do

Strategic & cross-business

  • Assess processes and systems across the business - engineering, product,

customer-facing operations, internal IT - to identify where AI can add genuine

value, streamline work, or reduce risk.

  • Act as the go-to technical authority on AI across Becrypt, working directly with

engineering teams, technical architects and internal IT rather than through a

reporting chain.

  • Develop and own AI-related policy, governance, risk assessment and compliance

frameworks, balancing confidentiality, integrity, availability, usability, customer

requirements, engineering effort and operational risk.

  • Advise leadership on AI strategy, opportunity areas and risk posture in plain,

actionable terms.

Platform & engineering delivery

  • Design and build platforms for long-running agentic workflow systems, including AI

gateways and supporting infrastructure services.

  • Design Docker-based services using Linux container environments, Python,

FastAPI, TypeScript, MCP/FastMCP, OpenAI and AWS Bedrock.

  • Apply secure boundaries around credentials, service access, tool invocation and

human-in-the-loop operation for AI/agentic systems.

  • Build reusable services and integrations, and assess the security, isolation,

maintainability and operational implications of emerging AI technologies before

they're adopted.

  • Actively probe AI systems, integrations and agentic workflows for vulnerabilities -

thinking like an attacker to uncover weaknesses in credential handling, tool

invocation and data exposure before they're exploited, and feeding findings back into

design and policy.

  • Get hands-on with difficult technical problems alongside engineers - investigating,

diagnosing and making architectural calls that improve security, assurance,

maintainability and long-term product direction.

What You'll Bring

  • Experience in designing, building, securing and operating complex software

platforms, Linux-based systems, distributed services, APIs and integrations.

  • Strong, current hands-on experience with Docker/containerised environments,

Python, FastAPI, TypeScript, and AI-specific tooling such as MCP/FastMCP,

OpenAI APIs and AWS Bedrock.

  • Practical experience building or integrating AI gateways, agentic workflow systems,

or similar AI infrastructure - not just using AI tools, but architecting the systems

around them.

  • A track record of enterprise or platform architecture at principal/CTO-advisory level,

ideally spanning regulated, security-conscious, or infrastructure-heavy environments

(e.g. payments, cloud platforms, integration platforms).

  • Demonstrated ability to design policy-based authorisation, credential/access

boundaries, and secure-by-design controls for systems handling sensitive

operations.

  • Experience operating as a senior individual contributor - influencing engineering,

product, security, customer-facing and leadership stakeholders without relying on

formal team management.

  • A working mental model that balances security (CIA), usability, customer needs,

engineering effort, operational risk and product strategy when making architectural

decisions.

  • Comfortable writing and championing policy, risk and compliance documentation,

not just technical designs.

Success in This Role Looks Like

  • A clear, prioritised view of where AI can and should be applied across Becrypt,

backed by policy and risk frameworks that leadership and engineering trust.

  • A working AI gateway / agentic platform in production use, built to Becrypt's security

and operational standards.

  • Engineering teams and internal IT with a clear, well-governed path to adopt AI

capability safely and consistently.

About Leonardo UK

Leonardo is one of the top ten players in the world in Aerospace, Defence and Security, with revenues of €15.3bn. Its portfolio spans electronics — including radar, electronic warfare and platform protection, counter-UAS, advanced targeting and military communications — as well as helicopters, combat air, cyber security and resilient digital solutions, training and simulation, and future aviation and uncrewed systems.

Industry
Aerospace and Defence
In the UK
London
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