Lead AI Engineer

Lead AI Engineer

BorederlessHR is a tech firm based in canada. They partner with different businesses in North America to recruit top tech African talent for available roles on a full time basis.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Lead AI Engineer

Location: Abuja (FCT)

Employment Type: Full-time

Reports To: MD

Job Summary

This job is a build role. It is not IT support, and it is not a digital transformation strategy role. In this job you will design, architect and deploy the digital infrastructure and AI systems that let a lean HoldCo team govern multiple subsidiaries with institutional precision.

• The company has a clear position: a complete specification handed to the best available AI tools produces a bespoke, company-owned system faster and more cheaply than configuring and licensing a commercial one.
• You will be expected to build that way. What will be assessed is whether you can specify well and hold quality to a high standard.

What You Will Do

Build and Deploy:

• Design, architect and deploy production-grade AI systems, including the MD Command Centre, Meeting Intelligence Engine, Portfolio Intelligence Dashboard, Agentic Recruitment System and other systems in the company's Product & Systems Register
• Develop the company's AI institutional core: the context layer, advanced meeting intelligence, portfolio dashboard and agent layer
• Build full-stack applications across frontend, backend, database and deployment
• Implement RAG, embeddings, vector stores and agentic workflows, with outputs grounded and sources cited
• Build for model portability so the company can change AI providers without rebuilding its products

Specify and Agree:

• Turn business needs into system specifications by engaging users, validating requirements and getting written agreement before development
• Design interfaces and workflows, and obtain MD approval before development begins
• Test with real company data, including edge cases and failure scenarios, before anything goes live

Govern and Secure:

• Build and maintain the company's Microsoft 365 environment and governance (Entra ID, SharePoint, Teams, Power Automate, Intune)
• Own the software layer of identity and access management
• Specify the physical infrastructure your software needs (readers, servers, network, power); Administration procures, installs and maintains it
• Apply Nigerian data protection requirements (NDPR) from the design stage

Deliver and Embed:

• Make sure every system meets the company's definition of "finished": reliable, usable, documented, with clear failure handling and real user adoption
• Drive organisational change so employees actually move from existing processes to the new systems
• Produce READMEs, architecture documents and runbooks for every system
• Maintain the Product & Systems Register and support the quarterly confirmation of the build sequence
• Monitor system operating costs and keep documented records of technology spend
• Deliver two substantive progress updates each week and a monthly one-page scorecard to the Office of the MD
• Raise proposed changes or concerns about priorities in writing, in line with the MD's agreed sequence
• Support subsidiary digital launch templates and the wider digital infrastructure across the portfolio

What success looks like

• By Day 90: ten live, production-grade, AI-powered systems deployed
• By end of Year 1: the institutional core of the company's AI suite built, every subsidiary given a digital launch template, and the company positioned as one of the most digitally sophisticated holding companies in Nigeria

Requirements

Essential:

• Bachelor'sDegree in a relevant or related field
• Experience building so the AI provider can be swapped without a rebuild
• Shipped production systems that real people use to do real work, not prototypes or proofs of concept
• Designed and shipped at least one system built on an AI API (beyond using a coding assistant)
• Built at least one agentic system that acts autonomously without per-request user input
• Full-stack capability: React/Next.js, Node.js or Python, PostgreSQL or equivalent, and deployment
• Hands-on experience with RAG, embeddings and vector stores, and the judgment to ground and cite answers
• Working knowledge of Microsoft 365 governance (Entra ID, SharePoint, Teams, Power Automate, Intune)
• Understanding of Nigerian data protection requirements (NDPR)
• Ability to take a brief, architect a solution, build it and deploy it without a team

Strong advantage:

• Experience running or fine-tuning open-weight models on owned infrastructure. The company intends to move sensitive inference to company-controlled hardware in Nigeria over time.

Who You Are:

• Disciplined. You document as you build, write READMEs a stranger could follow, and never push an undocumented system to production.

• A system designer. You have an eye for detail and know that inconsistent table borders and a default blue submit button are a brand liability. Your interfaces feel effortless.

• Comfortable with ambiguity. There are no legacy systems here, only blank canvases, and that energises you.

• A change-maker. You can get an organisation to change how it works, which is the part most builders underestimate.

• Why This Role

• Salary: N850,000 Monthly, gross upon resumption and reviewed to N1,200,000 after probation period.

• Build the digital foundation of a company from scratch, with real ownership and no legacy constraints

• Direct access to the Managing Director

• Your systems will shape how an entire portfolio of businesses operates.

Application Closing Date

20th October, 2026.