Distinguished Engineer - AI & Data Science

Description

About the role

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• Define and lead the AI and data science strategy across Encompass products, aligned with our vision for intelligent KYC automation. 
  
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Executive teams to identify opportunities for AI-driven innovation, especially around data acquisition and reasoning. 
  

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• Architect and lead the development of a cutting-edge agentic AI system for intelligent data discovery, extraction, and decision-making. 
  
• Oversee the integration of LLMs, knowledge graphs, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and reinforcement learning for autonomous task execution. 
  
• Champion the application of explainable and trustworthy AI principles in all solutions. 
  

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• Serve as a player-coach—writing code, prototyping models, conducting experiments, and reviewing designs. 
  
• Establish best practices for data science, MLOps, and model deployment at scale. 
  
• Guide the selection of AI technologies, platforms, and tooling. 
  

• Mentor team members and the broader business, fostering a culture of curiosity, experimentation, and continuous learning. 

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• Communicate complex technical concepts to business stakeholders and influence product strategy. 
  
• Represent Encompass in thought leadership forums and industry discussions on AI in RegTech and compliance. 
  

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

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• Proven experience in data science, AI, or ML roles with increasing leadership responsibility (people management experience not required). 
  
• Deep expertise in building intelligent systems with one or more of the following: LLMs, agent frameworks, RAG, knowledge representation, or autonomous data pipelines. 
  
• Strong programming and software engineering skills (Python preferred; familiarity with cloud-native and MLOps tools). 
  
• Demonstrated experience in building and deploying AI systems in production environments. 
  
• Strong understanding of data governance, bias, fairness, and regulatory considerations in AI. 
  
• Experience in the financial services, RegTech, or compliance domain is a strong plus. 
  
• Advanced degree (PhD or MSc) in Computer Science, Data Science, AI, or a related field. 
  

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• Think in terms of a 3-5 year future time horizon, helping others to see what’s down the road, and what the implications are for now.
  
• Support hiring our most senior engineering people.
  
• Care about, and is involved in the wider business strategy; doesn’t just have a pure engineering focus. Ideally the person would also be able to contribute directly to the business strategy.
  
• Able to provide actionable direction to teams of multiple stakeholders even in the most challenging of situations.
  
• Effective at creating and getting buy in for a multi-year technology strategy across the company, from Board level to individual engineers.
  
• Able to make and communicate difficult decisions when necessary.
  
• Lead by example to proactively foster an inclusive, diverse, and positive engineering culture across the business.
  

We offer a rewarding and challenging place to work, a transparent and collaborative culture and a well rounded benefits package. Below are some of what we currently offer:

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• Participation in our industry leading share options scheme
  
• Private Medical Plan
  
• 20 days a year Work From Anywhere policy for all staff 
  
• Flexible-first working policy
  
• Enhanced annual, personal and parental leave schemes.
  
• Paid volunteering leave programme
  
• Employer recognition and employee assistance programmes