Principal AI Engineer and Technical Lead
A hands-on principal role owning the architecture and end-to-end delivery of AI/ML systems — propensity and uplift models, forecasting, and optimisation — for a gaming-sector client. Leads a pod of ML/data engineers, builds production pipelines on GCP/BigQuery with Python and SQL, and acts as the client-facing technical lead.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Melbourne, AU
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Principal
- Employment
- Full time
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Ai engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 10+ years building and shipping production data and machine-learning systems, including time leading technically or leading a team
- Deep, hands-on Python and SQL; production data engineering on a major cloud platform
- Google Cloud Platform and BigQuery ideal; AWS, Databricks, or Microsoft Azure experience transfers well
- Applied causal inference and experimentation: uplift modelling, difference-in-differences, double machine learning, and power analysis
- Mathematical optimisation applied to real operational problems, including mixed-integer or linear programming and assignment or scheduling problems
- Track record of client-facing delivery, with presence to own a room of senior executives and external delivery partners
- Experience building agentic workflows and integrating LLMs and agentic systems into production solutions
- Production-grade standards as a working habit: testing, reproducibility, data lineage, and documentation
- Comfort operating in a regulated, high-governance data environment with controls and auditability
- Right to work in Australia, or a base in a time zone within about two hours of Australian Eastern Time
Nice to have
- Domain experience in gaming, casino, hospitality, or loyalty and marketing analytics
- Experience with recommendation systems, marketing and offer optimisation, or workforce and roster optimisation
- Experience integrating vendor systems for yield management, workforce management, or player and table tracking
- Background in responsible-gaming, anti-money-laundering, or privacy-by-design
- Consulting or client-embedded delivery experience
Full description
Company overview:
Blue Orange Digital is a boutique data & AI consultancy that delivers enterprise-grade results. We design and build modern data platforms, analytics, and ML/AI Agent solutions for mid‑market and enterprise clients across Private Equity, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Retail.
Our teams work with technologies like Databricks, Snowflake, dbt, and the broader Microsoft ecosystem to turn messy, real-world data into trustworthy, actionable insight.
We’re a builder‑led, client‑first culture that prizes ownership, clear communication, and shipping high‑impact work.
About the Role
We are building AI systems for a flagship Australian client in the regulated gaming and entertainment sector. The work began as a set of proofs of concept and is now moving into piloted production, with further workstreams expected as the engagement grows. You would be the technical owner: the person who designs these systems, builds them, and stands in front of the people who depend on them.
The projects span the applied artificial intelligence stack. Some are machine-learning recommendation and decision systems that determine who to engage, what to offer, and how to act, grounded in causal evidence rather than guesswork. Others are forecasting and optimization systems that make operations and workforce planning sharper and more responsive. As the practice grows, expect the work to reach further into modern artificial intelligence, including generative and agentic approaches, wherever it earns its place. Across all of it, we build production-grade systems on cloud data platforms, with governance, privacy, and responsible-use controls designed in from the start.
You would own the architecture and delivery of this work, lead a pod of engineers, and be the technical face of the engagement. You will collaborate closely with the client's business and technical teams and with the advisory and consulting partners they bring alongside, translating deeply technical work into plain language and holding the standard under scrutiny. This is a hands-on principal role. You will write code, set the technical standard, and own the room.
Level: Principal
Location: Melbourne preferred. We will consider strong candidates based elsewhere in Australia, and exceptional candidates located in a time zone within about two hours of Australian Eastern Time. The role carries regular on-site presence at client locations.
Employment: Full-time
Service Line: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Implementation
What You Will Do
- Own the technical architecture and end-to-end delivery of each workstream, from data foundations through models and optimisation to the evidence that proves they work.