Head of AI Engineering

About Ippon

At Ippon Australia, we are a team of technologists who leverage contemporary thinking and modern engineering practices to help clients solve meaningful business problems.

Whether we are modernising legacy platforms, enabling cloud-native delivery, building AI-enabled products or helping enterprise teams improve software delivery performance, we focus on delivering practical outcomes that create measurable value.

As part of a global consultancy of 800+ consultants, we combine the agility and ownership of a boutique with the capability and backing of deep partnerships across AWS, Snowflake, Databricks & DBT alongside expertise in software engineering, cloud, data and product delivery.

We are now looking for a Head of AI Engineering to shape and grow our AI capability in Australia.

About the Role

This is a hands-on, consulting leadership position that combines modern engineering, product thinking, software architecture and applied AI.

You will lead the development of our AI capability — helping clients navigate AI adoption responsibly, improving delivery performance, modernising engineering practices and building scalable, secure, AI-enabled products and platforms.

You will play a key role in defining our go-to-market proposition, growing capability, supporting strategic client engagements, and mentoring consultants, while remaining close enough to delivery to influence quality and outcomes.

We are looking for someone who cares deeply about software craft, believes in practical outcomes over hype, and is excited by the opportunity to help shape a growing capability within a boutique consulting environment.

What You’ll Be Doing

Practice Leadership & Growth
Lead and grow Ippon Australia’s AI capability, shaping offerings, delivery standards, ways of working and market positioning.
Grow, mentor, and coach our consultants across software engineering, architecture, delivery and AI.
Help define repeatable consulting frameworks, assessment models, accelerators and service offerings.
Foster a culture grounded in engineering excellence, collaboration, continuous improvement and practical experimentation with AI.
Client & Consulting Leadership
Act as a trusted advisor to our leadership team.
Translate ambiguous business and technical challenges into pragmatic engagement strategies and measurable outcomes.
Support pre-sales, proposals, workshops, discovery engagements and executive conversations.
Shape AI-enabled transformation strategies across engineering, product, delivery, and architecture.

Delivery Excellence
Provide technical and consulting oversight across engagements involving software engineering, product development, architecture, platform modernisation and AI-enabled delivery.
Champion modern engineering practices including platform thinking, observability, Devops, CI/CD and test automation.
Use evidence-based metrics such as DORA and flow metrics to improve delivery performance and team effectiveness.
Help clients balance governance, security, compliance, speed and quality in highly regulated environments.

Applied AI Leadership
Guide clients in the practical adoption of AI, including agentic workflows, LLM-enabled applications, AI-assisted software engineering and intelligent automation.
Partner closely with cloud and data practices to connect AI capabilities with AWS, Snowflake, modern data platforms and enterprise architecture.
Support responsible adoption of AI through clear approaches to governance, privacy, security and risk management.
Identify pragmatic AI use cases that improve software delivery, customer experience, operational efficiency or product outcomes.