AI Engineering Director

AI Engineering Director

Permanent | Hybrid (Amsterdam) |

Riverflex is building a frontier AI engineering practice — the kind our clients wish existed as they navigate complex intelligent transformation programmes. You lead it. You own developing the architecture, the team, our products & accelerators, and the trajectory of AI engineering at Riverflex. This is not a management-only role: you architect and code alongside your team, ship systems to production for blue-chip clients, and develop the reusable accelerators that make our delivery best-in-class.

This role reports directly to the founders and carries a clear path to Director — Riverflex's most senior level — with a profit-share compensation model that rewards practice ownership. You co-create new service offerings as the AI market evolves, sit in the room with C-level clients, and partner with the founding team on commercial growth. The path is yours to build.

About Riverflex

Riverflex was founded in Amsterdam and London in 2018, eventually growing into a global team of consultants united by a mission to help courageous leaders drive transformative change. Today, we offer an integrated service through three service pillars: strategy and transformation consulting that Creates Change, talent services that Build Teams, and business-accelerating products that Augment Intelligence. For more information, visit www.riverflex.com.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Delivery

• Architect and ship AI systems for complex client engagements — meaningful production work, not pilots that die in PowerPoint

• Own system design decisions across LLM-based applications, agentic architectures, RAG pipelines, evaluation frameworks, and model routing

• Serve as senior technical lead on client engagements

• Drive technical quality, code review, and engineering standards across the AI practice

Offering Development and Products & Accelerators

• Design and ship at least one core reusable Riverflex AI accelerator (e.g. agentic harness, eval framework, RAG pipeline template) within the first year

• Co-develop new client service offerings in partnership with the strategy team as the AI landscape evolves

• Allocate time to R&D, internal IP, and new offering development

Team Build & Scaling

• Scale the AI engineering team within 12 months — hire, calibrate, and retain

• Set the bar for engineering talent: own hiring loops, technical assessments, and onboarding

• Develop engineers through coaching, pairing, and structured growth paths

Commercial & Client Engagement

• Partner with founders in C-level client conversations — co-piloting in year one, with growing autonomy by month 12

• Scope complex AI engagements, translating client problems into deliverable technical architectures

• Contribute to practice growth through commercial credibility and client trust

Job Requirements

• 10+ years of engineering experience, with meaningful time leading technical teams (4–5+ years in technical leadership)

• Deep capability in modern AI systems: LLMs, agentic architectures, RAG, evaluation, model routing

• Proven ability to architect and ship production systems — not just prototype or advise

• Hands-on with hiring, calibration, and developing engineers

• Comfortable with ambiguity, allergic to bureaucracy

• English fluent

The following are a plus:

• Production GenAI track record (we are equally open to candidates who will build this track record at Riverflex)

• Ex-startup CTO (Series A–C, AI-first product company), senior staff/principal engineer at a scale-up (e.g. Booking, Adyen, Picnic, Mollie), or frontier-lab IC (e.g. Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepMind, Mistral, Cohere) ready to commercialise

• Dutch language skills

• Experience with consulting delivery or client-facing technical advisory

What We Offer

• Clear progression with profit-share upside tied to practice performance

• A competitive compensation package. 

• 25 days off per year, plus we are closed for the week between Christmas and New Years so you can spend that time with your loved ones. 

• Flexible work from abroad options, for up to 6 weeks per year. 

• Pension scheme to help you plan for your future. 

• Personal Learning and Development budget, including full access to all Udemy courses. 

• Classpass membership, so you can nurture your mind and body regularly. 

• Access to the latest tech & tools, including laptop, home office budget, and professional software like ChatGPT pro, Sembly, SlideHub, Notion, and Riverflex’s own in-house software. 

• Equity share scheme, giving our long-term te