About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF 809 CONNECTED BUSINESSES

Digital and Innovation in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories, where creative and enterprising people put local residents and businesses first.

Today, Westminster is the most connected borough in London. But, when David joined us in the mid-2010s, small businesses were still struggling to get connected to fibre. Without gigabit-capable broadband, some companies even resorted to biking memory sticks around the city, simply to share files with clients.

Although still in a junior role, David took the initiative and successfully made the business case for £2.8 million of European funding to support connectivity for small businesses across Westminster. Feedback from businesses has been overwhelmingly positive as the project has enhanced their communications with clients. The new connectivity allows them to make video calls and work remotely. As the pandemic hit and many more people needed to work from home, it became clear just how vital this investment had been.

Fast-forward a few years. Westminster is leading the way for connectivity, as a result of the project businesses are thriving, and David is heading up a service of his own responsible for delivery of the Smart City strategy.

The Role:

As a Lead Software Engineer, you can make your own powerful contribution to people across Westminster. Joining the council’s newly established AI Innovation Hub, you’ll act as the senior technical authority for AI agents — owning the most complex agent builds, setting the patterns the rest of the organisation follows, and running the Agent Ops operating model that keeps the council’s agent estate safe.

Your day-to-day will be varied and dynamic, including everything from designing resident-facing assistants and internal staff productivity agents, to responding to incidents and ensuring governance processes are followed. Acting as a mentor to less technical agent builders, you’ll raise the technical floor across the organisation, building community, sharing knowledge and supporting council teams to harness AI to deliver better outcomes for residents.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information.

About You:

An established professional with demonstrable experience designing and delivering AI agents or AI-enabled automation in a production setting, you’ll bring hands-on experience of Microsoft Copilot Studio and the Power Platform. You may have worked in a complex or regulated organisation in the past, and will be confident monitoring and evaluating AI agents, controlling cost, responding to incidents and applying an AgentOps-style lifecycle. You’ll also have a strong understanding of the following:

• Agentic patterns.
• Prompt design, scripting and programming for integration and automation.
• AI safety, Responsible AI, prompt-injection defences, data governance and privacy.
• APIs, JSON/XML, OAuth, Microsoft Graph, custom connectors, and Dataverse data modelling.

As a leader, you’ll be motivating and supportive, setting a high-bar that inspires others to learn, grow and develop their own skillsets. On a personal level, you’ll have the ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical audiences, strong problem-solving and analytical skills and a commitment to user-centred design and inclusive service delivery. This is a fantastic opportunity to join an innovative, supportive team, and to supercharge your career in the process.

Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role.

The Council is committed to achieving diverse shortlists to support our desire to increase the number of staff from underrepresented groups in our workforce. We especially encourage applications from a Global Majority (GM), people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities' (formally known as B.A.M.E, Black, Asian and multiple ethnic) background and, while the role is open to all applicants, we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments.

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe. At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is Our Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/

As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.

The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.

We reserve the right to extend or close this vacancy early without warning subject to the volume of suitable applicants.