AI Principal Developer

Job Description

Working as a technical leader within the SP Energy Networks Centre of Excellence across all Value Streams, the Principal Developer will provide strategic and hands-on technical leadership in the exploration, design, and delivery of AI-driven and emerging technology solutions that accelerate SPEN's digital transformation.

The role is responsible for identifying innovative opportunities, shaping scalable architectures, and embedding modern engineering practices to unlock business value, improve operational efficiency, and support regulatory and customer outcomes.

Acting as a senior technical authority within the Centre of Excellence, the Principal Developer will bridge cutting-edge technology with real world SPEN challenges, ensuring solutions are secure, resilient, and aligned to enterprise standards, while fostering innovation, mentoring engineering teams, and driving the adoption of AI, automation, and next-generation digital capabilities across SPEN.

What you'll be doing

• Lead the end-to-end technical delivery of AI and emerging technology solutions, ensuring they are designed, built, and deployed to meet enterprise standards for security, scalability, resilience, and performance.
• Translating strategic intent into high-quality engineering outcomes, embedding DevSecOps practices, and ensuring seamless integration with SPEN's core platforms and data ecosystems
• Provide technical leadership on modern software engineering practices, integration patterns, cloud services, data platforms and AI-enabled solutions, ensuring designs are scalable, resilient, secure and supportable
• Agree and recommend AI solution and technology designs with business representatives and Solution Architecture leads
• Lead on technology trials and implementations, including generative AI, machine learning-enabled services, prompt design, model integration patterns, automation tooling and responsible AI controls
• Lead on the evaluation, design and governance of AI-powered solutions to identify technologies that support business goals and strategy., ensuring appropriate controls for security, privacy, data quality, explainability and responsible use
• Provide expert technology advice to Transformation teams and projects
• Guide teams on when to use traditional engineering approaches, automation, analytics and generative AI, and will help establish standards for experimentation, proof of value and operational readiness
• Drive technical assurance across the delivery lifecycle-governing design decisions, managing technical risk, and ensuring compliance with regulatory, cyber security (e.g., NIS/CAF), and data governance requirements. Provides hands-on leadership to resolve complex technical challenges, accelerates delivery through reuse and standardisation, and ensures solutions deliver measurable operational and business value
• Partner closely with product owners, architects, and business stakeholders to align delivery with priorities, while mentoring engineering teams and fostering a culture of innovation, continuous improvement, and engineering excellence across the Centre of Excellence

What you'll bring

• Significant experience in software engineering, application design and technical leadership within an organisation of similar scope and scale, with experience of influencing enterprise-wide standards and delivery approaches
• Strong experience of modern application development, systems integration, APIs, event-driven architecture and secure engineering practices
• Experience in evaluating, designing or integrating AI-enabled capabilities such as generative AI assistants, intelligent automation, search, summarisation, classification or decision-support solutions
• Strong understanding of AI and machine learning solution lifecycles, including data quality considerations, prompt design, model selection, testing, monitoring and operational support requirements
• Experience in collaborating with external vendors and internal stakeholders to define solution options, complete proof of concept exercises and run innovation initiatives from discovery through implementation
• Strong knowledge of architecture patterns, non-functional requirements, technical governance and the trade-offs between build, buy and AI-augmented solutions
• Highly developed problem-solving and delivery skills with the ability to analyse complex issues, recommend appropriate solutions and lead delivery through to successful outcomes
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical and AI-related concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders and senior leaders
• Ability to build effective relationships with key stakeholders locally and globally, and to mentor engineers through standards, coaching, reviews and technical leadership
• Experience of operating in a virtualised team model and leading teams comprising a combination of internal and external resources
• Experience of design modelling, documentation and collaboration tools, with an evidence-based approach to architecture and engineering decisions
• Knowledge of responsible AI principles, including privacy, security, bias awareness, governance and human-in-the-loop controls

Minimum Criteria

• Extensive related work experience in cross functional software engineering, application design or technical leadership
• Over 10 years of progressive experience in software engineering/enterprise architecture/technology leadership across multiple products, systems and/or platforms
• Experience in Enterprise applications, database, distributed computing, virtualization and/or application technology
• Experience in harnessing emerging technologies to the benefit of organisations
• Knowledge of technologies and common Packaged Platform/Systems
• Bachelor's Degree. In lieu of Bachelor's degree, equivalent industry experience may be considered
  • Knowledge and practical experience of:
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Generative AI
    • Microsoft Copilot
    • Large Language Models (LLMs)
    • AI Agents
    • Prompt Engineering
    • Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
    • Intelligent Automation
    • Machine Learning
    • AI Governance
    • Responsible AI
    • Data Science
    • Data Analytics
    • Digital Transformation

What's in it for you

As well as a competitive salary which is reviewed annually, you can also enjoy a number of other benefits. With our pension scheme, we'll double match your contribution up to a company contribution of 10%.

At ScottishPower, we believe it's the little things we do in life that make a big difference. From helping you look after your family's wellbeing, save for your future and take personal steps for climate action - our benefits are designed to help you do just that - so that you have everything you need to take care of your world - today and tomorrow. That's why our benefits include:

• 36 days annual leave
• Holiday Purchase - perfect your work/life balance with extra annual leave
• Share Schemes
• Payroll Giving and Charity Matched Funding
• Technology Vouchers - save more and spread the cost of your technology purchases
• Electric Vehicle Schemes - to help you transition to green/clean driving
• Cycle to Work scheme and Public Transport Season Ticket Loans
• Healthcare benefit options including: Dental Insurance, Private Medical Insurance, Health Cash Plan and annual Health Assessments
• Life Assurance (4x salary)
• Access to Savesmart financial wellbeing support
• Plus shopping, leisure, restaurant and gym discounts, and unique employee deals on travel insurance and more

Why SP Energy Networks

SP Energy Networks is part of the Iberdrola Group, one of the world's largest integrated utility companies and a world leader in wind energy. We keep electricity flowing to homes and businesses through Central and Southern Scotland, North Wales and in the Northwest of England. We operate over 4000km of cables and lines that make-up the transmission network - connecting infrastructure like wind farms into the electricity system. It's a role that puts us right at the heart of Scotland's ambition to be Net Zero by 2045.

And we're taking it very seriously. We're investing >£10 billion into our transmission network, directly supporting the rapid growth needed in renewable energy. With diverse opportunities across our businesses and a commitment to invest in our own internal talent, ScottishPower can offer people real career opportunities that meet personal and professional goals, in a global organisation.

Inclusion, diversity, and a social purpose are at the heart of everything we do. Together with our values, they bring us together into a stronger, more sustainable business with direct links to the communities we serve. It takes all kinds of people to build a large-scale business like ours, so whatever your background, you'll fit right in.

We are committed to providing reasonable support or adjustments in our recruiting processes for candidates with disabilities, long term conditions, mental health conditions, or who are neurodivergent or require pregnancy-related support. If you need support, please reach out to [email protected].

Mobility

Please note that any applicant who is not a citizen of the country of the vacancy will be subject to compliance with the applicable immigration requirements to legally work in that country. If/when required, the Company will support the employee with the necessary Immigration requirements.