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Lead AI-Native Software Engineer
8 West Consulting
Source: Headcount Labs · original listing ↗
Job data: Headcount Labs, ODbL 1.0. Job descriptions belong to their employers.
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About this role
About 8 West Consulting 8 West Consulting provides consultancy services and software solutions to clients across the US, Europe and the UK. We work in sectors including insurance, healthcare and retail, helping organisations tackle complex technology challenges and modernise critical platforms. The Opportunity We are looking for a senior, hands-on software engineer who has used AI coding agents to deliver secure, production-ready software within established enterprise environments. You will help 8 West develop practical, repeatable agent-driven engineering workflows for existing applications and client projects, with a particular focus on GitHub Copilot and Microsoft technologies. This is not an AI strategy or prompt-only role. You will write and review code, build and operate agent harnesses, and ship thoroughly tested changes to real systems, including legacy and business-critical applications. You will guide developers in adopting these practices alongside live delivery commitments and within enterprise security, governance and contractual boundaries. Key Responsibilities Deliver production software. Personally design, implement, test, review and release agent-assisted changes to existing enterprise applications, not only new builds or prototypes. • Engineer agent workflows and harnesses. Build reusable instructions, tools, context pipelines, execution loops and feedback mechanisms that help agents work reliably within enterprise repositories and engineering controls. • Modernise brownfield applications. Adapt agent workflows to established .NET services, legacy code, databases, integrations and build pipelines; manage dependencies, regression risks and safe incremental change. • Make quality non-negotiable. Connect agent output to unit, integration and end-to-end tests, code review, security scanning, build pipelines and clear release criteria; investigate failures yourself. • Respect enterprise boundaries. Apply least-privilege permissions, approved tools and models, secure environments, sensitive-data controls, traceability and human approval points to agent workflows. • Modernise delivery incrementally. Introduce practical workflows for understanding, modifying, testing and maintaining existing systems; pilot improvements without disrupting live project commitments. • Work in the Microsoft ecosystem. Apply GitHub Copilot and other approved agentic tools to .NET, Azure, SQL and established Git repositories, integrating with Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions and existing delivery pipelines. • Coach developers through delivery. Pair on real work, demonstrate techniques, review agent-generated changes and create concise playbooks that enable other engineers to work independently. • Influence stakeholders. Explain opportunities, limitations, risks and technical choices clearly to developers, engineering leaders, security teams and client decision-makers. • Demonstrate measurable value. Evaluate delivery speed, rework, escaped defects, engineering effort, reliability and cost rather than treating AI-generated code volume as success. Essential Skills & Experience Proven enterprise production delivery. Demonstrable personal experience shipping and supporting production software through agentic coding workflows, with evidence of rigorous verification, release controls and operational outcomes. • Brownfield enterprise experience. Must have personally built and deployed AI-driven development workflows around existing production applications, not only greenfield projects. Comfortable with legacy code, incomplete documentation, complex dependencies, established tests and change controls. • Agentic development and harness design. Hands-on experience with multi-step coding agents, planning, context engineering, reusable instructions or skills, tool integrations (including MCP where relevant), safe execution controls and feedback-driven validation. • Strong core software engineering. Substantial experience designing, coding, debugging and maintaining complex enterprise applications and services; sound judgement on architecture, APIs, data, performance and maintainability. • GitHub Copilot and Microsoft tooling. Practical experience with GitHub Copilot agent workflows in Visual Studio or VS Code, plus familiarity with .NET/C#, Azure, SQL Server and GitHub or Azure DevOps delivery practices. • Engineering quality and release controls. Ability to implement automated unit, integration and end-to-end testing, CI/CD checks, peer review, security controls, deployment verification and production troubleshooting for AI-assisted changes. • Security and governance by design. Experience working within enterprise restrictions on source code, client data, secrets, tools, networks and access; understands prompt-injection risks, IP/licensing concerns and auditable approvals. • Pragmatic engineering transformation. Evidence of helping established enterprise teams adopt agentic practices, working through legacy constraints, resistance to change and competing delivery priorities. • Communication and mentoring. Strong ability to teach by pairing and demonstration, communicate with technical and non-technical leaders, constructively challenge assumptions and bring developers with you. Desirable Experience • Regulated industries. Insurance, healthcare, financial services or similarly controlled environments, including evidence of compliant delivery, auditability, privacy and formal change management. • Broader agentic tooling. Experience with additional coding agents or frameworks, agent orchestration, custom agents, hooks, MCP servers, sandboxing and evaluation harnesses. • Advanced delivery automation. Infrastructure as code, secure build environments, observability, DevSecOps, platform engineering or repeatable software delivery templates. • AI systems and assessment. Experience evaluating agent performance with repeatable tasks, automated checks, traces and failure analysis; familiarity with LLM-enabled product features is useful. • Consulting and technical leadership. Experience coaching engineers across multiple enterprise teams or client engagements, developing reusable practices and advising stakeholders on trade-offs. Personal Profile You are a hands-on, security-conscious engineer who enjoys complex, imperfect codebases. You modernise existing systems safely, teach others by example and know when agents require human oversight. You are practical, collaborative and accountable for production quality. What Success Looks Like Existing client systems benefit from secure, tested agent workflows that meet enterprise release controls. Reusable harnesses reduce repetitive work without increasing defects or risk. Developers gain practical skills, and 8 West demonstrates measurable improvement across engagements.