Agentic AI Principal

We are looking for an Agentic AI Principal to act as a senior technical authority and trusted client advisor for complex agentic AI transformation in the UK and Ireland. Operating at Principal level, you will shape enterprise AI strategy, define agentic architecture blueprints, lead high-value C-suite engagements and guide complex programmes from opportunity through delivery. You will bring deep hands-on credibility in multi-agent systems, governance and safeguards, while setting reusable patterns and raising capability across teams. The role has particular focus on sovereign, compliant and production-grade agentic AI for regulated UK enterprise environments, including financial services and telecommunications. Job responsibilities • Agentic AI Advisory & Strategy: Shape and solution complex UKI pursuits, working with account, commercial and delivery leaders to translate client needs into differentiated propositions, credible architectures and executable delivery approaches that support regional pipeline conversion. • Design & Build Engineering: Set the architecture direction for complex, production-grade agentic AI systems, including multi-agent workflows, orchestration, tool use, memory, context strategy, retrieval, evaluation, observability and enterprise integration. • Governance & Safeguards: Establish reusable patterns for observability, auditability, traceability and control of agentic systems, enabling teams to demonstrate safe and reliable behaviour in production. • Principal-level leadership: Set reusable architecture patterns, engineering standards and governance practices across multiple teams and engagements, influencing the evolution of Thoughtworks’ agentic AI capability beyond an individual programme. • Design solutions appropriate for regulated UK environments, including financial services and telecommunications, with strong consideration of data sovereignty, privacy, security, responsible AI and applicable regulatory requirements. • Provide technical and delivery leadership for complex programmes, maintaining sufficient hands-on involvement to validate architecture, unblock teams, manage technical risk and ensure successful execution. • Set technical direction across multiple teams and initiatives, defining reusable patterns, frameworks and engineering standards for agentic AI delivery. • Guide teams in balancing rapid experimentation with robust production engineering, including evaluation-driven development, testing, CI/CD, reliability, cost and performance optimisation. • Partner with product, data, software engineering, enterprise architecture, governance and change specialists to design end-to-end solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes. • Anticipate technical, organisational and governance challenges in enterprise AI adoption and define practical approaches to address them. • Mentor senior engineers and technical leads, uplift broader engineering capability, and build confidence in agentic AI practices across specialists and generalists. • Evaluate emerging agentic AI technologies and frameworks and guide their responsible adoption based on client context, engineering quality and business value. • Represent Thoughtworks' agentic AI expertise in strategic client conversations, industry forums, partnerships and thought leadership where appropriate. Job qualifications Technical Skills • Deep expertise in modern software engineering and Python, with a strong track record of setting standards for testing, CI/CD, observability, maintainability and production reliability. • Recognised experience architecting and delivering complex GenAI and agentic AI systems at enterprise scale, from early discovery through production deployment. • Deep knowledge of agentic architectures and frame