Head (m/f/x) of Engineering - Delivery

The appliedAI Initiative elevates Europe’s industry to become shapers in the age of AI, creating a future that we desire to live in. Through our ecosystem of strong partners, comprehensive programs, services and solutions we advance companies holistically on their AI journey. With our uniquely diverse, interdisciplinary, and driven team, we build on deep technical expertise while specializing on applicability of the solutions. We share a mindset of collaboration and openness with our ecosystem of leading companies and tech players. Our common goal is to strengthen the European landscape, jointly creating unique knowledge for applying trustworthy AI. We believe that AI Agents will be the dominant topic for AI in the near future and that appliedAI with its partner ecosystem will impact how this technology is being used in industry and beyond in Europe.

AI engineering at appliedAI runs on real industrial ground: energy, automotive, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and financial services, with systems that have to hold up in production and not only in a demo. At the head of engineering for the whole of Professional Services, you would set the direction for how that capability is built, staffed and grown, while squads keep the kind of leadership and development proximity that makes people actually grow. If you want the seat where engineering strategy, commercial accountability and people development are the same job, this role was built for you.
Your tasks will include:

• Developing engineers as the first duty of the role rather than the residue of it: growth paths, levelling, honest feedback, and enough proximity to know what each person is genuinely ready for
• Leading your squads, setting how engineering works day to day, and holding the standard the rest of the practice builds to
• Owning the skill map and capacity plan for engineering across the whole of Professional Services: what capability exists, what's missing, and how engineer-to-engagement fit gets decided, so staffing is a strategic call and not a calendar exercise
• Selling engineering in the technical substance: carrying a deep architecture discussion and a C-level conversation in the same meeting, and owning the scope, effort and price that comes out of it
• Owning escalation on the engagements where a wrong call gets expensive, stepping in early enough for it to count without taking the project away from the person leading it
• Shaping how appliedAI builds software itself, applying agentic and AI-native development to our own delivery so the practice compounds instead of restarting with every project

Lucas Fernandes - Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist
appliedAI Initiative GmbH, August-Everding-Str. 25, 81671 München