Team Lead - AI Engineering

About Us

1GLOBAL is a technology-driven global mobile communications provider, delivering global connectivity solutions to enterprises and consumers. Powered by a best-in-class telecom platform – including its own owned and operated global mobile core network, fully fledged in-house developed eSIM technology, and an extensive portfolio of telecom licenses – 1GLOBAL operates as a fully regulated telecommunications provider across 40 countries worldwide.

We serve many of the world’s leading banks, enterprises, and digital-first businesses, including neo-banks, global fast moving consumer goods companies, travel leaders, and payment service providers. Today, 1GLOBAL connects more than 70 million people and devices globally, enabling our customers to launch, scale, and innovate with confidence in the mobile ecosystem.

1GLOBAL is a profitable, fast-growing business. With full-year revenues in 2025 exceeding US$200 million and profits of over US$25 million, we generate strong cash flows to fund our growth allowing us to continuously invest in infrastructure, platform innovation, and global expansion. Recent years have marked a defining phase in our journey, with major enterprise and mass-consumer client wins accelerating our evolution into a global mobile connectivity powerhouse, purpose-built to enable consumer brands to enter and succeed with their own aspirations to offer telecommunications services to their clients.

Founded in 2022 by experienced technology entrepreneurs, Hakan Koçand Pyrros Koussios, 1GLOBAL has rapidly emerged as a European technology leader shaping the future of global telecommunications. We operate as a fully regulated Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) in 12 countries and as a regulated telecom operator in an additional 28 markets. Headquartered in the Netherlands, with world-class R&D hubs in Lisbon, Berlin, and São Paulo, our team of close to 500 experts across 15 countries is united by a single ambition: to redefine global mobile connectivity through technology, scale, and execution excellence.

About the Team

We are building a new AI team within Engineering, tasked with driving AI adoption across 1GLOBAL. The team’s primary mission is to design and operate an internal AI and knowledge platform that makes our collective knowledge accessible, searchable, and actionable. Beyond the internal platform, the team will contribute AI-powered capabilities to our commercial product lines.

As Team Lead, you will own the engineering delivery of this function. You will hire and grow the team, set technical standards, and be accountable for the platform’s reliability, performance, and evolution. You will work closely with a dedicated product manager and report into Engineering leadership.

About the Role

• Lead the AI Engineering team: hire, mentor, and develop engineers while fostering a culture of ownership, quality, and continuous improvement.
• Own the technical architecture of 1GLOBAL’s internal AI platform, including RAG pipelines, vector search, LLM integration, and conversational interfaces.
• Drive architectural decisions across the AI stack, balancing speed of delivery with long-term scalability and maintainability.
• Collaborate with product management, operations, and commercial teams to prioritize high-impact use cases and translate them into engineering plans.
• Establish and enforce engineering standards: code quality, testing strategies, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and model evaluation frameworks.
• Manage the full software development lifecycle for AI services, ensuring reliable production operations and clear incident response.
• Stay hands‑on: contribute to design, code reviews, and critical implementation work, especially in the early phase of the team’s growth.
• Coordinate with security and compliance teams to ensure AI systems meet 1GLOBAL’s regulatory obligations (ISO 27001, GSMA SAS, data classification).

About You

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 years in a technical leadership role managing engineering teams.
• 2+ years of hands‑on experience with AI/ML systems in production, including RAG architectures, LLM integration, or NLP pipelines.
• Proven ability to hire, develop, and retain strong engineering talent. You have built or significantly grown a team before.
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals: API design, microservices, distributed systems. Proficiency in Python expected.
• Experience with vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Elasticsearch, or similar), LLM fine‑tuning, and prompt engineering.
• Solid grasp of CI/CD, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and infrastructure‑as‑code.
• Familiarity with data security practices and experience working within regulated environments (financial services, telecommunications) is an advantage.
• Telecommunications domain knowledge is a plus but not required.
• Excellent communicator who can align technical and non‑technical stakeholders around a shared roadmap. Fluent in English.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity. You will be defining the team’s ways of working, not inheriting them.

Why 1GLOBAL?

• Growth Opportunities: Advance your career in one of the fastest growing telecommunications companies, expanding over 100% year‑on‑year under the leadership of successful tech entrepreneurs.
• Major Transaction Exposure: Be in the driver’s seat for transactions that will have an impact on the future telco industry.
• Work with a Talented Team: From the Board and the Founders to the Senior Management Team, you will collaborate daily with the most capable and renowned external advisors, and constantly be exposed to talented and driven individuals.
• Dynamic Work Environment: Thrive in a collaborative, fast‑paced workplace where innovation is encouraged, and every contribution counts.
• Professional Development: Work alongside industry experts to enhance your skills and knowledge in a cutting‑edge field.
• International Experience: Gain opportunities to work in different 1GLOBAL offices around the world as you grow within the company.
• Open Communication Culture: Join a team where your ideas are heard, and open dialogue is encouraged, fostering a supportive and transparent work environment.
• Get Things Done Attitude: Be part of a results‑driven team that values efficiency, creativity, and the drive to make a tangible impact in the industry.

1GLOBAL is an equal opportunity employer, we value your character as much as your talent. Diversity drives our innovation, and we offer a collaborative, dynamic, and international work environment. We are excited for you to join our mission to revolutionise connectivity globally.