Staff Engineer - AI & Automation

Job description

This is a hands-on engineering role, not a management or transformation-leadership role. We're looking for a builder — an engineer who spends their day designing, coding, and shipping software — to reinvent how Commercial Finance works using AI agents and automation. You'll be embedded with our Commercial Finance function to solve a concrete, high-value problem: the deal approval process is manual, slow, and spreadsheet-driven. You will redesign it from the ground up and build the AI agents and automation that run it. The finance specialists on the team hold the process knowledge; you bring the engineering. Your job is to turn their process into working software. This is an individual contributor role. You will own technical delivery yourself, from idea to design to deployment, rather than directing a team of builders. After the first project ships, you'll keep building, extending the same capability across Commercial Finance over the coming years and driving AI adoption within the function. If you already build agents in your spare time, experiment with the latest models for fun, and would rather write code than write a strategy deck, this role is for you. What You'll Do Completely redesign the deal approval process and build the software that runs it, end to end. Design, build, and deploy AI agents and LLM-based automation that replace manual review, reconciliation, and validation work. Cut unnecessary finance approvals by encoding rules and risk-based routing into automated workflows. Take projects from idea → prototype → production yourself, owning technical delivery throughout. Integrate your solutions with the systems Commercial Finance depends on, including CRM, ERP, and finance data sources. Improve efficiency and free up capacity across Commercial Finance, measured in cycle-time reduction and manual work removed. Drive AI adoption within the function over the coming years, building reusable agent capability and helping the team direct and supervise it day to day. Become the go-to technical expert dedicated to Commercial Finance's projects. Technical Themes You should be strong across most of these and excited to go deep on the rest: AI agents; designing, building, and orchestrating autonomous and semi-autonomous agents, preferably using Claude. LLMs; prompting, tool use, retrieval, evaluation, and safe deployment in production. Cloud technologies, building and running services in a Microsoft Azure Environment. Process and workflow automation, replacing manual, rules-heavy work with reliable software. Systems integration, connecting CRM, ERP, and finance data sources via MCP/APIs and data pipelines. Modern engineering practices, version control, testing, CI/CD, observability, and clean, maintainable code. Governance and Security, ensuring the highest level of security and governance are met About You We're looking for a technical-first engineer — someone who is hands-on, loves building things, and is already experimenting with AI on their own. Concretely: You code every day and want to keep it that way; you're an individual contributor at heart. You have a strong engineering mindset and take pride in shipping robust, production-grade software. You're already building with AI — agents, LLM apps, or automations, at work or in your own time. You're comfortable owning a problem from a blank page through to a deployed, adopted solution. You're genuinely interested in cloud technologies, automation, and where AI engineering is heading. A finance background is explicitly not required. You will partner with finance specialists who know the process; your value is solving their problems with technology. Curiosity to learn the domain quickly matters far more than prior finance experience. Level, Reporting & Package Level: Staff Engineer — a senior individual contributor who builds, not a people manager. Reporting line: reports into an engineering leader within the wider engineering organisation, while being dedicated full-time to Commercial Finance projects. Location: Staines-upon-Thames, UK — hybrid working. We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships. IFS is a billion-dollar revenue company with 7000+ employees on all continents. We deliver award-winning enterprise software solutions through the use of embedded digital innovation and a single cloud-based platform to help businesses be their best when it really matters–at the Moment of Service™. At IFS, we're flexible, we're innovative, and we're focused not only on how we can engage with our customers, but on how we can make a real change and have a worldwide impact. We help solve some of society's greatest challenges, fostering a better future through our agility, collaboration, and trust. We celebrate diversity and accept that there are so many different perspectives in this world. As a truly international company serving people from around the globe, we realize that our success is tantamount to the respect we have for those different points of view. By joining our team, you will have the opportunity to be part of a global, diverse environment; you will be joining a winning team with a commitment to sustainability; and a company where we get things done so that you can make a positive impact on the world. We're looking for innovative and original thinkers to work in an environment where you can #MakeYourMoment so that we can help others make theirs. If you want to change the status quo, we'll help you make your moment. Join Team Purple. Join IFS.