Lead AI Engineer - Financial Inclusion

[https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/5ac97b31-49cd-4012-8bb0-5caf15e33c69/B25.png] We're hiring our first Lead AI Engineer to lead a team that designs, ships, and scales automations and AI agents across M-KOPA. This is a brand-new team within the business - the tech foundation is already proven, and now we need someone to lead it, scale it, and define what it becomes. [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/98cde4bc-fa0a-4874-a12e-0db70c8c4abf/image.png] The Impact Your automations and agents will directly improve how 2,300+ employees work across our global operations. We've already helped over 7 million customers access over $2 billion in credit - and the tools you build will help that mission scale further and faster. It's your chance to be part of something that's literally transforming lives across an entire continent 🌍 [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/453f2403-3288-4bc2-9d75-d9a1897d968d/image.png] The Opportunity - 🎯 Mission-driven engineering: Every automation you build helps internal teams and customer-facing staff deliver financial inclusion to Africa's Every Day Earners - 🏆 Global recognition: Join a company named by TIME 100 as one of the world's most influential and by the Financial Times as Africa's fastest-growing for 4 consecutive years (2022–2025) - 🚀 Scale challenges: 2,500+ employees across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, the UK, and Europe - internal teams that can't scale by hiring forever need intelligent tooling that actually works - 🌱 Environmental impact: We're carbon-negative, having displaced over 2 million tonnes of emissions What You'll Do At M-KOPA, you'll lead the AI Operations team from day one - owning delivery, growing the function, and proving the value. Your team builds automations and agents for internal use and serves as internal consultants, helping Engineering integrate AI into customer-facing products. Join us in combining cutting-edge AI tooling with purpose-driven work that makes digital and financial inclusion possible across Africa. Your key responsibilities: - Lead two AI Ops Engineers — own their delivery, development, and day-to-day work - Prioritise efficiently — manage competing requests from multiple teams by applying a clear prioritisation framework you'll help develop and improve - Build and ship automations and agents that measurably improve how internal teams and customer-facing staff work - Keep the AI tooling stack healthy as usage scales across 2,500+ employees - Stay current on emerging AI tools and technologies - know what's hype and what's actually useful - Help refine AI training for the wider organisation, including Engineering teams Technical Environment 💻 - AI & Agentic Frameworks: Claude, Claude Code, Anthropic tooling, LangChain, MCP, Google ADK (or similar agentic tooling) - Automation & Prototyping: Scripting, workflow tools, AI-assisted development, rapid prototyping (Vercel/Railway) - Enterprise Tooling: Identity automation (Entra), internal platforms, Notion, HiBob integrations - Existing Foundation: Twelve months of Claude, Notion, HiBob, and Entra automations already running in production Our Approach - Build, don't just advise — this is a hands-on team that ships working automations and agents - Prove the value, then expand — start with two engineers, demonstrate impact, grow from there - Product-focused mindset — treat internal teams as customers and build tooling that works - Cut through the hype — evaluate emerging AI tools on practical value, not marketing buzz What You Need We're looking for someone with a strong technical background and product-focused. You won't be building models - we have Data Science teams for that. You'll be building agents, shipping automations, and leading a team that makes M-KOPA's internal operations smarter and faster. Required Experience: - Hands-on experi...