Senior AI and Data Engineer

Job Title: Senior AI and Data Engineer
Location: Hybrid Working – London N3 / EC4M
Working Hours: Monday to Friday, 35 hour week (Flexitime)
Reporting to: Operations & Transformation Director

Salary: £80,000 - £90,000

About BKL

BKL is a Top 40 accountancy and advisory business supporting a diverse client base, from entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals to ambitious owner-managed businesses and multinational groups. With a legacy spanning over 130 years, we’ve evolved into a modern, purpose-driven business that balances profit with impact.

We are proud to be a certified B Corp, reflecting our commitment to sustainability, transparency, and responsible governance. As a member of DFK International, we support clients locally and internationally with cutting-edge expertise and a personal touch.

We believe all clients deserve the same level of care, innovation, and excellence.

About the Team

You’ll be joining our Strategy and Transformation Team, working at the heart of BKL’s AI capability. The team works closely with senior leadership, operational stakeholders and colleagues across service lines, supporting them with technology delivery, strategic change, and digital transformation. We’re collaborative, innovative and outcome-focused, offering exposure to firm-wide transformation initiatives and the opportunity to help shape our evolving data and AI capabilities.

A Message from the Hiring Manager

We’re looking for a hands-on and versatile Data & AI engineer who’s excited to ship production AI systems in a professional services firm. You’ll work closely with senior stakeholders to scope opportunities to use AI and then partner with teams to develop point solutions for these. The solutions will range in nature from intelligent document processing to agentic workflows that augment our advisors and drive real productivity. If you’re pragmatic, curious, and motivated by impact, we’d love to hear from you.

Your Opportunity

This is a hands-on senior engineering role building the AI systems that power BKL’s transformation. You’ll own the design and delivery of AI enabled workflows, and LLM-powered applications used across the firm. With real ownership, senior visibility, and scope to shape our technical direction, this is an opportunity to do your best work on meaningful problems.

How You’ll Make a Difference

In this role, you will:

• Design, build, and deploy production-grade data and AI systems, from ingestion and transformation pipelines through to the AI applications that run on them.

• Build and maintain reliable data pipelines and lakehouse infrastructure that serve both analytics and AI workloads across the firm.

• Own technical decisions across the stack - from data modelling and pipeline design to retrieval, evaluation, and deployment patterns.

• Build robust evaluation frameworks to measure and improve system quality over time.

• Scope new opportunities and gather requirements with business teams. capturing and prioritising requirements and defining what good looks like before building.

• Partner closely with teams across the firm as a trusted advisor, running discovery to understand how they work, analysing their processes and pain points, and shaping and scoping point solutions together that deliver measurable business value.

• Contribute to our engineering standards, mentoring others and raising the bar on code quality, testing, and operational excellence.

• Stay close to the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem and bring relevant innovations into our work.

You’ll Be Ideal for This Role If You Have:

Required Skills & Experience:

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of developing production-grade systems.

• Strong expertise in Python and SQL.

• Solid understanding of data engineering foundations - orchestrating ETL/ELT pipelines, data modelling, and working with large datasets in a lakehouse/warehouse setting.

• A genuinely collaborative, business-facing approach — comfortable acting as the bridge between business and technology: running discovery with non-technical teams, gathering and analysing requirements, and translating business problems into scoped, high-impact AI solutions together.

• Hands-on experience building LLM-powered applications, with strong underlying skills (prompt engineering, structured outputs, tool use, and evaluation)

• Experience building agentic workflows or retrieval-augmented (RAG) applications.

• Strong CI/CD and production deployment discipline - testing, observability, versioning, and safe rollout.

• Experience with Databricks (Unity Catalog, Delta, PySpark) or equivalent lakehouse platforms.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or related STEM field.

Desired Skills & Experience:

• Experience building on Microsoft or Azure AI platforms (such as Azure AI Foundry, Copilot Studio, or the Power Platform), or the appetite to get up to speed quickly.

• Familiarity with agent and tool-integration patterns - function and tool calling, connecting agents to enterprise data and systems, and protocols such as MCP.

• Comfort working across multiple LLM providers and selecting the right model for a given task.

• Experience delivering user-facing tools within enterprise environments such as Microsoft 365, Teams, or the web.

• Fluency with AI-assisted development tooling in day-to-day development.

• Background in professional services, consultancy, or another regulated or advisory environment.

• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders.

We know you have a lot to offer, which is why we give you the freedom to thrive, no matter who you are or what your background is.

Our Values

At BKL, we live by five core values:

• Think Big – Be curious, brave, and open to new ideas.

• In It Together – Collaborate, care, and build an inclusive culture.

• Take Pride – Strive for excellence and believe in your impact.

• Do the Right Thing – Act with integrity, honesty, and fairness.

• Enjoy It – Bring your whole self to work and have fun doing it.

Working With Us: Your Benefits, Wellbeing & Development

At BKL, we’re committed to creating a people-first workplace where everyone can thrive. We offer a carefully curated benefits package, wellbeing support, and meaningful development opportunities that empower you to grow your career.

Snapshot of our Benefits Package

We’ve designed a flexible, sustainable set of benefits to support your life at work and beyond:

• Private Medical Insurance (PMI) – including mental health cover, hospital treatment & 24/7 GP access

• Health Cash Plans – covering everyday costs like dental, optical & physiotherapy and an Employee Assistance Programme

• Pension scheme – helping you save for retirement in a tax-efficient way

• Group Life Assurance – peace of mind with financial protection for your loved ones

• Cashback & savings portal – discounts across hundreds of high-street and online retailers

• Cycle to Work Scheme – spread the cost of a new bike and accessories tax-free

• Electric Vehicle Scheme – sustainable transportation options that include roadside support and servicing

• Free Mortgage Advice – expert guidance for your home-buying journey

• Season Ticket Loan – support with travel expenses

• Enhanced Family Leave – generous leave policies for family-related needs

• Holiday Entitlement – generous entitlement which increases with promotion

Development & Growth

We don’t just offer jobs, we support careers:

• Clear development pathways and progression frameworks

• Professional qualifications support – including study time and funding

• Internal mentoring, coaching, and buddying schemes

• Leadership development programmes to help you grow with us

• Regular check-ins and performance conversations – driven by your goals, not just metrics

Take Your Next Step

Ready to grow your career with a company that balances ambition with purpose? Apply today and discover how far you can go at BKL.

Our recruitment process typically involves three stages:

1. An introductory Teams call with our Talent Acquisition team.

2. A first-stage interview with two team members.

3. A final interview at our London office, including a tour to give you a feel for our working environment.

Compliance & Equal Opportunities

In addition to the responsibilities listed above, you will be required to undertake GDPR training in order to fully understand the regulations and ensure all work is carried out in a compliant manner.

As part of any recruitment process, BKL collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. BKL is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

BKL is an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified candidates eligible to work in the UK.

We know you have a lot to offer, which is why we want to give you the freedom to thrive no matter who you are or what your background is. You will have every opportunity to use your creativity in how you approach your work and the support to innovate.

Inclusion, diversity, and talent development are a fundamental aspect of who we are, and we welcome applications from candidates who share and champion these values. You will play an integral part in helping to make BKL a great place to work with a sense of belonging for everyone.

High challenge, high support
If you enjoy problem-solving and a fast-changing environment, you will thrive in this role.

As in all BKL roles, you will be able to take a flexible approach: balancing independent work with teamwork, and remote working with time in the office with colleagues.

You can get an insight into life at BKL here .

We’re proud to be one of the few Certified B Corporations in the accountancy sector. In joining us, you’ll become part of a business that’s committed to balancing profit and purpose.

Take your next step
If this sounds like the role for you, we’d be delighted to discuss the career you could build at BKL.

By applying, you consent to the processing of your personal data for recruitment purposes, in line with UK GDPR. Your information will be used securely, only for recruitment, and won’t be shared without your consent. For details, see our Privacy Policy - BKL