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AI Labs Engine Room Lead

Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi

With your contribution and my contribution, together we will thrive.

Hei Oranga Iwi | The opportunity

This is a defining AI leadership role.

As the AI Labs Engine Room Lead, you will sit at the centre of EY Oceania’s AI growth strategy, partnering directly with the Chief AI Officer to architect, scale and industrialise the firm’s most advanced AI capabilities.

You will lead the AI GTM Engine Room, a high velocity, enterprise AI build capability focused on prototyping, hardening and scaling cutting edge AI solutions across sectors. From Generative AI and LLM orchestration to agentic systems and secure AI Lab environments, you will shape how AI is engineered, governed and deployed across EY and into the market.

This role blends deep technical architecture expertise with strategic influence. You will set standards, oversee secure AI Labs environments, guide complex deployments and mentor a high performing team of AI engineers, translating emerging AI capabilities into scalable, commercially viable solutions.

If you are an experienced AI architect and technology consultant who thrives in both build mode and executive conversations, this is an opportunity to shape AI at enterprise scale.

This role can be performed from any of our EY offices across Aotearoa. Our roles can potentially be adjusted to work flexibly with reduced hours. Please speak with us about potential options.

Ko Tō Rourou | Your key responsibilities

Define and lead the AI Architecture

• Design and oversee advanced AI solutions across Generative AI, LLM architectures, RAG patterns and agentic workflows
• Architect and govern secure AI Lab environments with embedded guardrails, security controls and Responsible AI frameworks
• Establish reference architectures, engineering standards and reusable accelerators across sectors
• Mature LLMOps and MLOps capabilities to ensure scalable, repeatable AI deployment

Scale from Prototype to Enterprise

• Lead cloud native AI system design across AWS, Azure and GCP
• Oversee integration of data pipelines, APIs and enterprise systems for secure deployment
• Guide containerisation, CI CD and infrastructure as code practices
• Ensure monitoring, evaluation and lifecycle management are embedded from day one

Partner at the Strategic Level

• Work alongside the Chief AI Officer on priority pursuits and strategic accounts
• Translate complex AI capabilities into commercially viable offerings
• Engage confidently with executive stakeholders on AI architecture, governance and scaling strategy

Build and Elevate Capability

• Lead and mentor AI Engineers across Consultant and Manager levels
• Encourage disciplined experimentation with a strong engineering backbone
• Continuously evaluate emerging models, frameworks and tooling to keep EY at the frontier

Ngā Pūkenga | Skills and attributes for success

• Proven experience delivering enterprise AI and Generative AI solutions
• Deep expertise in LLM architectures, RAG patterns, multi agent systems and orchestration frameworks
• Experience designing and operating secure AI Lab/sandbox environments
• A track record of building production grade AI systems at scale
• Strong business acumen and the ability to translate complex challenges into AI enabled solutions
• Executive level communication skills and experience influencing senior stakeholders
• Experience leading high performing, multidisciplinary engineering teams

Technical Capability

• Advanced programming expertise in Python, with broader engineering experience highly regarded
• Deep experience with AI and agentic frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, LangGraph, CrewAI and vector databases
• Experience deploying AI workloads across AWS, Azure or GCP including Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry and Vertex AI
• Strong understanding of data engineering, distributed systems and large-scale data processing
• Experience with containerisation technologies including Docker and Kubernetes
• Experience implementing LLMOps or MLOps including monitoring, evaluation and safe deployment
• Strong grounding in Responsible AI, governance and enterprise security controls

Why This Role

• Shape the technical backbone of EY Oceania’s AI strategy
• Influence how AI is engineered and governed at enterprise scale
• Work across sectors solving high consequence, complex problems
• Access frontier technologies through strategic hyperscale partnerships
• Build capability that defines how AI is delivered in market

Ko Taku Rourou | What we offer you

At EY, we’ll fuel you and your extraordinary talents in a diverse and inclusive culture of globally connected teams. Learn more.

• Career development: At EY, your career is yours to shape! We’ll develop you with future-focused skills and equip you with world-class experiences ey.com/au/careerdevelopment
• Flexible work arrangements: Our flexible work policies empower you to balance your professional and personal life, fostering a culture of trust and autonomy.

• A comprehensive benefits package: From a yearly wellness incentive, to access to additional 8 weeks of flex leave per year, and family-friendly policies, including 26 weeks of gender-neutral paid parental leave, we cater to your diverse needs to help you thrive both personally and professionally www.ey.com/au/benefits

Diversity, equity, and inclusiveness (DE&I) are core to who we are, how we work and how we live our values. We encourage applications from people of all ages, nationalities, abilities, cultures, sexual orientations, and gender identities and are committed to providing an equitable and barrier free recruitment experience for all. We encourage you to share any support and adjustments you need to be your best and participate equitably in our recruitment process. We understand sharing your needs with us can be daunting, so if you have questions before or during your application, we welcome you to get in touch at contactrecruitment@au.ey.com or +61 3 8650 7788 (option 2). Anything you tell us will be kept completely confidential.

He rourou kai kei ō ringa hei tākoha? Tēnā haria mai!

Are you ready to shape your future with confidence? Apply today

EY | Building a better working world

Our preferred applicant will be required to undertake employment screening by EY or our external third-party provider.

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