Engineering lead (AI COE)

Why we're hiring:

You will play a crucial role in solution delivery and day-to-day technology management of the Global Cloud Apps and AI program. Reporting to the AI CoE Lead, you will lead the architecture, standards, and advanced development requirements for our global enterprise AI portfolio. Alongside CoE Leadership, you will guide a crew of 6-8 engineers to ensure the release of high-quality products on time and within budget.

Our team is chartered to develop and deliver custom AI products and enhance global cloud apps products or AI projects delivered by other delivery teams from around WPP.

Are you a visionary technical leader with a deep mastery of the Microsoft Power Platform and Agent ecosystem and a passion for engineering excellence? We are looking for an Engineering Lead to drive our technical strategy and architectural standards. In this senior role, you will be responsible for conducting research spikes, providing technical guidance to development teams, and ensuring that our global agent framework ensures a foundation of robust, scalable, and maintainable components. You will combine your extensive experience from the D365/Dataverse era with modern ALM practices to keep our global operations at the cutting edge of AI and automation.

What you'll be doing:

• Architectural Governance: Define and maintain global architecture standards, design patterns, and best practices for Microsoft cloud, AI and Power Platform solutions across the enterprise.
• Technical Leadership: Lead and mentor a crew of 6-10 developers, providing hands-on guidance, code/solution reviews, and technical oversight to ensure high-quality product delivery.
• Advanced Development: Handle complex development requirements and "research spikes" to evaluate new features, tools, or frameworks (e.g., Microsoft Agent Framework (Python), Databricks Genie, WASP/React).
• ALM Strategy: Own and optimize the M365 Copilot and Power Platform Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) process using Power Pipelines, PAC CLI, and code-first DevOps practices.
• Solution Design: Design efficient, high-performance Cloud Flows and applications utilizing deep expertise in REST API integration, JSON manipulation, and XPath.
• Agile Delivery: Act as a lead practitioner in a Kanban environment, ensuring development flow is optimized and technical debt is managed effectively.
• Dataverse Excellence: Oversee the integrity of Dataverse environments, leveraging experience with the Dataverse Web API and Plugins to build sophisticated business logic.
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Partner with AAI Leadership to align technical roadmaps with business objectives, ensuring products are delivered on budget and meet global requirements.
• Security & Compliance: Ensure all automation solutions adhere to strict security policies, data governance standards, and environment-level DLP policies.
  • Support Integration: Work closely with the AOC support teams to ensure that new products are architected for "hand-over" success, including comprehensive documentation and observability.

What you'll need:

• Overall experience: 12+ years in IT engineering, software development, or technical architecture roles with a focus on Power Platform/D365 or JS full-stack development involving Dataverse and Azure.
• AI-assisted software development: Proven mastery of tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, AMP, Github Copilot) and methodologies (BMAD, GasTown, Beads, BacklogMD, Wiggum).
• AI Frameworks: Proven experience with Microsoft Agent Framework (MAF-Python), Autogen, Semnatic Kernel or similar (Langx, CrewAI)
• Power Platform Mastery: Expert proficiency in the full Power Platform suite, including Model-driven Apps, Dataverse, Power Automate, and Code Apps.
• DevOps & ALM: Expert-level understanding of automated deployment pipelines, environment variables, and solution segmentation.
• Integration Expertise: Deep understanding of RESTful services, JSON schema, and complex data manipulation (XPath/Expressions) for efficient flow design.
• Methodology: Proven experience as an Agile (Kanban) practitioner, managing work-in-progress and flow efficiency.
• Mentorship: Demonstrated ability to lead and grow technical teams, fostering a culture of continuous learning and engineering rigor.
• Problem-solving: Exceptional ability to troubleshoot "unsolvable" technical blockers and provide creative architectural workarounds.
• Communication: Ability to articulate complex technical architectures to both executive leadership and junior development staff.
  

  Mandatory Certifications

  • PL-600: Microsoft Power Platform Solution Architect

  Preferred Certifications:

  • AI-102: Microsoft Azure AI Engineer Associate (Required within 2 months of joining)
  AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure

Who you are:

You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are open-minded: to new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You're extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

What we'll give you:

Passionate, inspired people – We aim to create a culture in which people can do extraordinary work.

Scale and opportunity – We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.

Challenging and stimulating work – Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?

#LI-Hybrid