Senior AI Engineer (f/m/d)

About the AI Platform Team

The AI Platform Team enables Awin teams to build, ship, and operate AI-powered products safely, consistently, and efficiently.

We focus on the shared platform and enablement layer for AI development across the company. That includes reusable services, internal APIs and SDKs, platform patterns, observability, evaluation support, guardrails, cost visibility, and practical guidance that helps teams move from experimentation to production with confidence.

This is a team for engineers who enjoy building internal platforms, creating paved roads for others, and raising the engineering quality bar for AI development across the organization.

About the role

We are looking for a Senior AI Platform Engineer - Security & Governance to join the AI Platform Team and help define and implement the guardrails, privacy patterns, governance mechanisms, and safe defaults that allow AI adoption to scale responsibly across Awin.

In this role, you will work on the safety and control layer of AI development: AI security patterns, privacy and PII handling guidance, provider and model governance, reusable guardrails, and lightweight readiness mechanisms that improve safety without creating unnecessary process.

This role is best suited to someone who combines strong engineering judgment with real practical experience in security, governance, privacy, or compliance for AI-powered systems. We care more about evidence of sound decision-making and pragmatic implementation than about titles or years in a specific niche.

What youʼll do

• Define and improve practical guardrails and safe defaults for AI-powered systems
• Help shape Awinʼs approach to privacy, PII handling, and data-safe patterns for AI workflows
• Contribute to approved provider and model guidance, including practical validation and usage expectations
• Work with engineers to translate policy, risk, and governance needs into reusable platform patterns and engineering controls
• Help define production-ready expectations for AI systems from a safety, governance, and risk perspective
• Contribute to readiness checks, automated validations, and scalable governance mechanisms that reduce reliance on manual approval processes
• Help improve logging, tracing, and observability practices so AI systems are auditable and safer to operate
• Partner closely with Security, Legal, Architecture, and product engineering teams to ensure standards are practical and proportionate
• Support teams in understanding AI-specific risks such as unsafe outputs, provider misuse, privacy exposure, and poor trace hygiene
• Write clear documentation, patterns, and guidance that help teams apply standards consistently
• Contribute to strong engineering practices across the team through clean code, testing, and collaboration 
• Mentor others and help raise the teamʼs overall maturity in AI safety, governance, and privacy-aware engineering

Requirements

• Strong software engineering fundamentals and experience working on production systems
• Practical experience in security, governance, privacy, compliance, or risk-related engineering work
• Clear hands-on experience applying those controls to AI- or LLM-powered systems
• Strong understanding of AI-specific risks, including privacy exposure, PII handling, unsafe outputs, provider/model risk, and misuse or abuse patterns
• Experience translating policy or risk requirements into practical engineering controls, patterns, or defaults
• Good understanding of how to make AI systems observable, auditable, and safer to operate in production
• Ability to work effectively with engineers, architects, and non-engineering stakeholders such as Security or Legal
• Good practical experience with Python and/or JavaScript / TypeScript
• Comfortable working across the lifecycle of a platform capability, from design and implementation to rollout and iteration
• Good understanding of information security and how to design solutions with security in mind
• Comfortable applying unit testing, continuous integration, and continuous deploymentStrong communication skills, both synchronous and asynchronous
• Comfortable working through ambiguity and helping shape standards where the right balance between safety and speed is still evolving
• Strong judgment and pragmatism, with an ability to improve safety without introducing excessive bureaucracy

Nice to have

• Experience designing or implementing guardrails for AI or LLM-powered systems
• Experience with AI governance automation, readiness gates, policy checks, or preflight validation patterns
• Familiarity with tracing, auditability, and logging standards for AI systems
• Familiarity with evaluation workflows, regression checks, and production readiness practices for AI
• Experience assessing third-party AI providers or model usage from a risk or governance perspective
•  Experience with privacy-by-design patterns in data-sensitive systems
• Experience working in regulated or higher-risk environments
• Experience writing clear developer guidance and turning repeated risk questions into reusable standards

Tools and technologies you may work with:

• Python
• JavaScript / TypeScript
• Azure / AWS
• LLM APIs
• CI/CD tooling
• Observability and tracing tools
• Policy and validation patterns
• Internal platform services, standards, and governance tooling

Working style

We are looking for someone who enjoys building in a space that is evolving quickly, but who stays grounded in pragmatic engineering and long-term platform value.

A strong fit for this role is someone who:

• Thinks clearly about real-world AI risk, not just theoretical concerns
• Can balance safety, speed, and developer experience
• Communicates clearly and helps others understand trade-offs
• Prefers reusable controls and automation over manual gatekeeping
• Is comfortable collaborating across engineering, security, architecture, and legal boundaries
• Writes clear, actionable guidance rather than vague policy language
• Is proactive about identifying risk patterns early and turning them into scalable solutions
• Enjoys helping other engineers build safer systems without slowing them down unnecessarily

• Flexi-Week: We prioritise your mental health and wellbeing by offering you a four-day Flexi-Week (with one lighter or completely disconnected day per week) at full pay, with no reduction to your annual holiday allowance.
• Flexi-office: We offer an international culture and flexibility through our hybrid/remote working scheme which is designed to foster a culture of mutual trust and working flexibility.
• Work Expense Contribution & Remote Working Furniture: You will receive a monthly allowance to cover part of your running costs, as well as a furniture package to support you in setting up a comfortable workspace when working from home.
• Health and Wellbeing: With our support and access to various initiatives and sports offers, you can focus on your mental and physical wellbeing.
• Development: We’ve built our extensive training suite, Awin Academy, to cover a wide range of skills that support your professional and personal growth, with trainings conveniently packaged to help your overall development.
• Appreciation: Thank and reward colleagues by sending them a voucher through our peer-to-peer recognition programme.

Established in 2000, Awin is proud of our dynamic, social and inclusive culture.

Like all businesses, we’ve had to adapt and nurture our culture in a virtual environment. Our virtual ‘Life @ Awin’ hub brings our colleagues from across the globe together for various social activities.

Diversity & Inclusion are paramount to us, and we proudly pursue and hire diverse team members. We champion uniqueness and authenticity; this is who we are at our core. Our network of affiliate partnerships are diverse and transparent, as are the employees powering our vision to build the world’s leading open partner ecosystem. We welcome all backgrounds, identities, and experiences. If you need support at any point in the application or interview process, please let us know.

Awin is part of the Axel Springer group. Learn more at axelspringer.com/en/, and explore the Axel Springer Essentials here: axelspringer.com/en/inside/the-essentials-what-we-have-adapted-and-why  

Apply now to begin the next stage of your career at a progressive company that supports both your professional and personal development.

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