Automation Engineering Lead

Why we're hiring:

WPP is a creative transformation company, helping clients create growth by combining technology and creativity. As one of the world's largest marketing and advertising services organizations, we are committed to driving innovation and operational excellence across our vast global network.

You will be joining the Automation Operations Centre within WPP's Enterprise Technology, Automation & AI department. This is a pivotal time for us as we're building a dedicated, in-house team to deliver, manage, monitor, and optimize our growing portfolio of automation solutions. This team is at the forefront of our digital transformation, ensuring the seamless operation and continuous improvement of critical automation capabilities across WPP globally

You will play a crucial role in solution delivery and day-to-day technology management of the Global Automation Operations Centre (AOC) program. Reporting to the AAI Operations Director and AAI Product Lead, you will lead the architecture, standards, and advanced development requirements for our global automation portfolio. Alongside AAI Leadership, you will guide a crew of 6-10 developers to ensure the release of high-quality automation products on time and within budget.

The AOC is chartered to develop and delivery automation products, support global automation products or projects delivered by Automation delivery teams from around WPP. Our support apparatus gives those teams confidence and freedom to hand over their existing successes and continue innovating.

Are you a visionary technical leader with a deep mastery of the Microsoft Power Platform and a passion for engineering excellence? We are looking for an Automation Engineering Lead to drive our technical strategy and architectural standards. In this senior role, you will be responsible for conducting research spikes, providing technical guidance to development teams, and ensuring that our global automation suite is built on a foundation of robust, scalable, and maintainable components. You will combine your extensive experience from the D365/Dataverse era with modern ALM practices to keep our global operations at the cutting edge of AI and automation.

What you'll be doing:

Automation Engineering Lead (Engineering Excellence + AI-Driven Automation) 

We are looking for an experienced Automation Engineering Lead who combines a complete view across multiple engineering technology streams with a strong background in automation and AI-driven engineering practices across modern technology stacks. 

This is not a single-stack or platform-specific role. 

You will act as an enterprise engineering leader, responsible for designing scalable, high-performance solutions by evaluating the right engineering approach across diverse technology streams spanning APIs, backend services, modern frontends, cloud platforms, deployment architecture, and AI/ML capabilities. 

You will play a critical role in shaping engineering strategy, establishing end-to-end engineering processes, guiding engineering teams, and ensuring solutions are fit-for-purpose, scalable, and future-ready. 

 What You’ll Be Doing 

Solution Architecture & Technology Decisioning 

• Own end-to-end architecture for automation use cases across the enterprise  

• Evaluate and recommend the right approach across:  

• Cloud-native engineering (microservices, serverless, container platforms)  

• Custom engineering (APIs, backend services, UI frameworks)  

• AI-augmented automation combining ML services, LLMs, and intelligent workflows  

• Make informed trade-offs between build vs buy, custom vs platform, and AI-driven vs deterministic approaches based on scalability, cost, and maintainability  

• Act as a key decision-maker on the right technology stream and tooling for each engineering problem  

• Knowledge in Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, Dataverse) 

 Architectural Governance 

• Define and enforce global architecture standards, design patterns, and best practices  

• Establish reusable engineering frameworks and AI-driven automation accelerators across teams  

• Ensure consistency, scalability, and maintainability across implementations  

 Technical Leadership 

• Lead and mentor a team of 6–10 engineers  

• Provide hands-on guidance, solution reviews, and architectural oversight  

• Drive engineering excellence and a culture of continuous improvement  

 Advanced & Hybrid Development 

• Lead complex implementations involving:  

• Custom connectors and API integrations  

• AI/ML model integration and intelligent automation patterns  

• Backend services (.NET / Java / Node.js / Python) where required  

• Handle research spikes and evaluate new tools, frameworks, and capabilities  

 Integration & Data Architecture 

• Design robust integration solutions using:  

• REST APIs, webhooks, and service-based architectures  

• Event-driven and asynchronous processing patterns  

• Work with structured and unstructured data across:  

• Cloud data platforms (Azure Data Lake, BigQuery, Snowflake, etc.)  

• SQL / external data systems  

• Dataverse 

• Optimize performance, scalability, and reliability of automation workflows  

 ALM & DevOps Strategy 

• Own and mature end-to-end engineering processes including ALM, code quality, and release governance across the organization  

• Implement CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, and infrastructure-as-code using Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or similar  

• Drive adoption of code-first, version-controlled, and AI-assisted development practices  

 Stakeholder Collaboration 

• Partner with business and leadership teams to translate requirements into scalable technical solutions  

• Align architecture decisions with business goals, timelines, and budgets  

• Communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders  

 Security, Compliance & Supportability 

• Ensure solutions comply with enterprise security, governance, and data protection policies  

• Design solutions for operational readiness, observability, and smooth handover to support teams  

 What You’ll Need 

Experience 

• 12+ years in software engineering, solution architecture, or enterprise application development  

• Proven track record leading engineering teams across multiple technology streams with a strong background in automation and AI-driven engineering  

• Knowledge in Power platform or Dynamics 365 ecosystem 

 Engineering Process & AI-Automation Expertise 

• Deep expertise in:  

• End-to-end engineering processes (SDLC, code reviews, quality gates, release management) implemented at organizational scale  

• Deployment and technical architecture across cloud and hybrid environments  

• Automation engineering (CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, test automation, workflow automation)  

• Experience with:  

• Engineering AI workstreams (LLMs, agentic systems, intelligent automation)  

• Applying AI in automation (code generation, automated testing, intelligent code review, copilots)  

• Ability to drive engineering excellence and modernize platforms using AI-augmented approaches  

 Architecture & Engineering Breadth (Critical) 

• Strong experience with API design and REST-based integrations  

• Solid understanding of SQL, data modeling, and performance optimization  

• Hands-on experience with at least one backend technology (.NET / Java / Node.js / Python)  

• Exposure to modern frontend frameworks (React or similar)  

• Understanding of:  

• Microservices and distributed systems  

• Event-driven architecture (queues, messaging, pub/sub)  

• Proven ability to design and deliver solutions across diverse engineering streams with the right deployment and architecture choices  

 DevOps & ALM 

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automated deployments  

• Familiarity with Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, or similar tools  

• Strong understanding of environment strategy, solution segmentation, and release management  

 Leadership & Problem Solving 

• Proven ability to lead and mentor engineering teams  

• Strong architectural thinking and decision-making skills  

• Ability to solve complex, ambiguous technical challenges  

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills  

 Nice to Have 

• Experience with Azure services (Functions, Logic Apps, Service Bus, API Management)  

• Knowledge of enterprise integration patterns and iPaaS platforms  

• Hands-on experience embedding LLMs, agents, or copilots into automation and engineering workflows  

 Certifications 

• Certifications in AI/ML, DevOps, or enterprise architecture (TOGAF, SAFe, or equivalent), PL-600: Microsoft Power Platform Solution Architect (preferred)  

Who you are:

You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are open-minded: to new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You're extraordinary: we are stronger t