Lead AI Engineer, Business Acceleration

Company Description

We are SGS – the world's leading testing, inspection, and certification company. Today, that mission is driven by data. With 99,500 employees across 2,500 locations, we generate a unique and massive dataset on global trade, product quality, and sustainability.

We are launching a central AI Hub in Madrid to turn that data into intelligent products and services. To ensure this technology creates maximum business impact, we are embedding dedicated Teams within our key business units and countries. This is your opportunity to lead one of those teams, acting as the crucial bridge between a specific business challenge and the cutting-edge capabilities of our central AI platform.

Job Description

We're looking for an entrepreneurial AI leader to be the "tip of the spear" for AI adoption within one of our core countries. Your mission is to translate high-stakes business problems into tangible, AI-powered solutions that drive measurable P&L impact.

As a Lead AI Engineer, you will own the AI agenda for your designated business area. You will partner directly with business leaders to identify opportunities, and then lead the hands-on design and development of solutions. You won't be starting from scratch; you will leverage the powerful platforms, tools, and "Lego Bricks" built by our central AI Hub. Your role is to be the master integrator and innovator, delivering value at speed and contributing your team's breakthroughs back to the global SGS ecosystem.

What You'll Build and Own:

• Business-Driven AI Strategy: Partner with P&L owners and subject matter experts to deeply understand their challenges. Co-develop a roadmap of high-value AI initiatives, from discovery and prototyping to full-scale deployment.
• End-to-End Solution Delivery: Lead the hands-on development of AI-powered applications. This includes everything from data analysis and prompt engineering to building sophisticated agentic workflows that solve concrete business tasks.
• Platform Leverage and Collaboration: Act as the primary technical partner to the central AI Hub. Master the use of our shared AI platform and reusable components to accelerate delivery. Provide critical feedback to shape the central roadmap.
• Innovation and Contribution: Package successful solutions and novel techniques developed within your team into new, reusable "Lego Bricks" for the central library, amplifying your impact across the entire organization.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Serve as the senior AI expert for your business domain. Guide and mentor product engineers within your Accelerator Team, setting a high bar for technical excellence and rapid execution.
• Own the Outcome: Take full ownership of your projects, from the initial business case through to successful delivery and handover, ensuring every solution is robust, scalable, and creates quantifiable value.

Qualifications

• Applied Generative AI & LLMs: Deep, hands-on experience building and shipping applications with LLMs, including advanced RAG architectures, agentic systems (using frameworks like LangChain/LlamaIndex), fine-tuning, and robust evaluation techniques.
• Product & Business Acumen: A strong product mindset with a proven ability to translate ambiguous business needs into concrete technical requirements and impactful AI solutions.
• Core ML & Python: Expert-level Python and a strong foundation in classical ML and deep learning (PyTorch preferred).
• AI Infrastructure & MLOps: Hands-on experience consuming and deploying on modern AI stacks, including vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and cloud AI services (GCP Vertex AI, AWS Bedrock/SageMaker).
• Stakeholder Management: Excellent communication skills and experience collaborating effectively with non-technical business leaders, product managers, and central technology teams.

Who You Are

• You are a player-coach at heart, with extensive experience (e.g., 8+ years) in AI/ML and a passion for leading from the front with hands-on development.
• You are obsessed with solving real business problems and measuring your success by the value you create, not just the technology you build.
• You are a pragmatic builder who excels at using the right tools for the job to deliver results quickly and iteratively.
• You thrive in a "hub-and-spoke" environment, enjoying both the autonomy of a business-embedded team and the leverage of a powerful central platform.
• You are a natural bridge-builder, capable of speaking the language of both business and deep technology.
• German Language skills not necessary but advantageous.

Additional Information

What We Offer

• Top-of-Market Compensation: A highly competitive salary and bonus package for Madrid, designed to attract premier talent for this strategic role.
• Direct Business Impact: Own high-visibility projects from idea to P&L impact. See your work directly influence the bottom line of a major business unit.
• The Best of Both Worlds: Enjoy the autonomy and speed of a startup-like team embedded in the business, backed by the deep resources and cutting-edge platform of a central AI powerhouse.
• A Unique Problem Space: Apply cutting-edge AI to one-of-a-kind datasets from global supply chains, materials science, and industrial testing to solve tangible, real-world problems.
• Strategic Leadership Role: Act as a key leader in SGS's digital transformation, shaping how AI is adopted in the field and influencing the global technology strategy.