Software Engineer, Principal at Infor in Farnborough, England, GB

We are seeking a Principal AI Lead to define and drive the technical strategy for AI capabilities across the Infor MES platform and wider Manufacturing portfolio.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role responsible for defining the architecture, standards, data models, ontology strategy, and platform integration patterns required to bring AI capabilities to MES and Manufacturing solutions. Working closely with Infor OS technologies, you will help translate platform AI investments into practical, scalable, and secure manufacturing solutions.

You will work across Product Management, Architecture, Engineering, Cloud Operations, and Infor OS teams to ensure AI initiatives deliver measurable customer value while maintaining enterprise-grade security, scalability, and reliability. While this is primarily an individual contributor leadership role, line management responsibility may be available for the right candidate.

Reporting directly to the VP of Software Development, you will play a key role in shaping how AI, agents, data, and ontology-driven business context become foundational capabilities across the next generation of Infor Manufacturing solutions.

A Typical Day in the Life Includes:

• Defining the AI architecture, standards, and technical strategy for MES and the Manufacturing portfolio.
• Designing scalable, secure, and reliable AI-enabled product features using cloud-native and SaaS principles.
• Building production AI feature sets, reference implementations, and reusable platform components.
• Defining API strategies, tool interfaces, and integration patterns that enable AI capabilities to interact effectively with MES business processes.
• Leading the platform's approach to data modelling, ontology strategy, semantic understanding, and business context required for AI-driven experiences.
• Providing architectural leadership across multiple engineering teams delivering AI, Integration, IoT, Connected Worker, and platform capabilities.
• Working closely with Product Management to align AI investments with customer needs, business objectives, and market opportunities.
• Establishing engineering standards for security, governance, observability, and responsible AI.
• Evaluating emerging AI technologies, frameworks, and architectural approaches.
• Mentoring engineers and acting as a technical authority for AI initiatives across the Manufacturing portfolio.
• Contributing to long-term technical strategy and roadmap planning for AI Acceleration initiatives.

Basic Qualifications:

• A demonstrated background of software engineering experience delivering enterprise applications or platforms.
• Strong hands-on software development experience using modern engineering practices and technologies.
• Proven experience designing and delivering production AI solutions using Large Language Models (LLMs).
• Experience with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), agentic architectures, AI orchestration frameworks, and tool-based AI systems.
• Experience integrating AI capabilities into enterprise software products.
• Experience designing APIs, service contracts, and software architectures.
• Experience with cloud-native application development and modern SaaS architectures.
• Experience with semantic modelling, ontologies, knowledge graphs, or domain-driven modelling approaches used to represent complex business domains.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, security, scalability, reliability, and observability.
• Excellent C# and .NET experience and strong understanding of relational databases.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams and product areas.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience within Manufacturing, MES, ERP, Industrial IoT, or Operational Technology environments.
• Experience building multi-tenant SaaS platforms.
• Experience with vector databases, embeddings, semantic search, and AI retrieval architectures.
• Experience defining enterprise AI architecture and governance standards.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers or leading technical communities of practice.
• Previous people leadership or line management experience.

Infor MES is undergoing a significant transformation as we evolve towards a cloud-native SaaS platform and embed AI-driven capabilities throughout the product experience.

You will join a highly experienced engineering team with deep manufacturing knowledge, a strong culture of ownership, and a passion for building great software. We move quickly, value innovation, and give engineers the opportunity to turn ideas into production reality.

For the right individual, this role offers a rare opportunity to shape how AI is applied within manufacturing, influence product and technical strategy, contribute hands-on engineering leadership, and make a lasting impact across both the Infor Manufacturing portfolio and the wider Infor AI ecosystem.