Senior Applied AI Engineer
Role Summary
Join Pleo as a Senior Applied AI Engineer in London, where you'll develop AI-powered product features in a collaborative environment.
About the Organisation
Messy spend management is tricky business. And tedious processes are a lose-lose situation for all involved, not just finance. At Pleo, we're changing that. We build spend solutions that make managing money seamless, empowering, and surprisingly effective for finance teams and employees alike - with a vision to help all businesses ‘go beyond’.
The word ‘Pleo’ actually means ‘more than you’d expect’, and living by that mantra has been the secret to our success over the last 10 years.
Now, we’re at a pivotal moment in our journey; every move we make has a direct impact on our 40,000+ customers, our business, and our collective success. We need people who take pride in uncovering customer needs, who turn complex problems into simple solutions, challenge the way things are done (respectfully), and always aim high. With great ambitions driving us forward, we can’t say we’ve got this whole thing figured out. And frankly, that’s half the fun! What we can say is that we’re a driven, progressive, and, importantly, a kind bunch of 850+ people from over 100 nationalities, all committed to delivering the future of business spending, together.
This is an exciting opportunity to help shape how Pleo builds AI-powered product features, working alongside software engineers, data engineers and data scientists to take ideas from prototype to production. Pleo has over 40,000 customers and a decade of unique spend data — an incredible foundation to build on. Your mission will be to harness this data to create real product value.
This role is a good fit for you if:
This role is not a good fit for you if:
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- You have strong product instincts and build with the user in mind. You understand that a model is only as good as the problem it solves.
- You have moved past prototyping and have a deep understanding of the realities of LLMOps, data retrieval, prompt and context engineering, as well as model evaluation in production.
- You don't just call APIs, you understand the data feeding the AI system and can reason about data quality, architecture, and retrieval without needing a dedicated data engineer beside you at all times.
- You are primarily interested in model research or algorithm development. This role is about shipping working AI features to production.
- You need fully defined specs and a groomed backlog to operate effectively. We expect you to discover and define the problem alongside Product and Design.
- You cannot explain AI trade-offs clearly to non-technical stakeholders. You will regularly work with Product Managers, Designers, and business leaders who need to understand what is and isn't possible.
- English first. Since it's our company language, please submit your application in English. You’ll be using it a lot if you join us.
- A fair look for everyone. Our talent team reads every single application to ensure the process is fair. To keep things running smoothly, we only accept applications through our system—our support team can’t pass on calls or emails.
- Diversity drives us. We can only reach our goals if our team reflects the world around us. That starts with you hitting apply, even if you don't tick every single box. We encourage people from all backgrounds and experiences to join us.
- Interview at your best. We want you to feel comfortable throughout the process. If you have any accessibility requirements or need a specific format, email ----- We’ll design a process that works for you.
- Your data is safe. When you apply, we process your personal data as a data processor. For more information on how Pleo processes personal data, read our Privacy Policy here.
- Applying for multiple roles? Nothing is stopping you, and we assess every role independently. However, we do look for alignment, so make sure you can explain why your interest and experience are right for each specific role.
- Reapplying. If you’re applying for the same role again, please wait six months from your last decision before hitting submit.
Minimum Requirements
You will thrive in this role if you have:
- Proven experience shipping customer-facing AI features using LLMs; beyond prototype stage and into real production systems with real users.
- Deep practical experience with RAG system design and the full retrieval pipeline: embedding models, vector databases, chunking, hybrid search, re-ranking.
- Experience building and operating evaluation frameworks for LLM-based systems; you have a systematic approach to measuring quality.
- Strong Python engineering; your code is production-grade, tested, and maintainable.
- Experience building APIs and data retrieval pipelines that feed context into AI systems.
- Enough data intuition to reason about data quality, schema, and retrieval architecture without needing a dedicated data engineer beside you at all times.
- Experience with agentic system patterns: tool use, multi-step orchestration, error handling in LLM workflows.
- Familiarity with public cloud providers (AWS, GCP)
- We operate a polyglot platform, with components written in Kotlin and Python. While this role is Python-focused, you will need from time to time to contribute in a Kotlin stack, so being open to that is important.
Working Conditions
- Your own Pleo card (no more out-of-pocket spending!)
- Lunch is on us for your work days - enjoy catered meals or receive a lunch allowance based on your local office
- Comprehensive private healthcare - depending on your location, coverage options include Vitality, Alan or Médis
- We offer 25 days of holiday + your public holidays
- For our Team, we offer both hybrid and fully remote working options
- We use MyndUp to give our employees access to free mental health and well-being support with great success so far
- Paid parental leave - we want to make sure that we're supportive of families and help you feel that you don't have to compromise your family due to work
Eligibility Criteria
Pleo seeks a Senior Applied AI Engineer, with no clear eligibility statement for international applicants or visa sponsorship.
⚠️ Disclaimer: PathwayAI Africa does not guarantee employment, scholarships, visas, or admission. Always verify all opportunities through official sources before submitting personal information.
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