Head of Agent Architecture - EMEA

At Pencil, we are driving innovation in advertising technology through our state-of-the-art SaaS product, which harnesses Generative AI to redefine content creation. Our mission is to make AI the default in advertising without replacing creative people. To achieve this, we need to make sure that our technology isn’t just in the hands of big brands — we need to help small businesses and creative individuals too.

We’re looking for a Head of Agent Architecture: someone who thinks in systems, not just sentences, and who can translate that thinking into a team, a roadmap, and a set of standards the rest of the company builds on. You’ll set the technical vision for agent logic, tool-calling structures, and evaluation loops across Pencil’s core creative engine and our bespoke client work — and you’ll lead a small team of Agent Architects who help you build it.

This is a player-coach role. You’ll spend real time in the architecture yourself, especially on the hardest problems, while also building the team, processes, and standards that let Agent Architecture scale beyond you. You'll also represent Pencil's agent technology directly with brand and agency stakeholders, lead discovery on the most strategic engagements, and set the standard for how your team decomposes client problems and explains complex technical decisions in plain language.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Architecture: Define Pencil’s technical vision and roadmap for agent architecture — multi-agent workflows, task decomposition, state management, and tool-use (RAG, API integration, etc.) — and get buy-in from leadership.
• Team Building: Hire, mentor, and manage a small team of Agent Architects. Set the technical bar, give real-time feedback, and run their development conversations.
• Systematic Optimisation: Use and champion evaluation frameworks so agent performance is measured.
• Scalable Frameworks: Own the reusable agents and prompt libraries that let the platform serve 1,000+ brands with unique voices simultaneously, and make the call on what gets built once versus build bespoke.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner with AI Engineering, Product, and Sales/Client leadership to decide what’s handled via prompting, RAG, or fine-tuning.
• Client Architecture: Act as the final technical escalation point for the most complex client deployments. Personally lead discovery on the highest-stakes engagements, decompose ambiguous client problems into buildable agent workflows, and present trade-offs (cost, latency, reliability) to senior non-technical stakeholders. Coach your team to do the same.

Your Background

• 8+ Years of Direct GenAI Experience, with 2+ Years Leading People or a Function: Deep, technical fluency with LLMs (GPT-4, Claude, Gemini) and multimodal models (Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, video gen), plus a track record of managing engineers/architects or owning a function’s roadmap and outcomes.
• Systems Thinking: You think about the latent space, the context window, and how one agent’s output becomes another’s input — and you can teach that thinking to a team.
• Technical Literacy: Comfortable with Python, JSON structures, and API documentation. Experience with agent orchestration patterns matters more than any specific framework.
• Evaluation Obsession: You believe unmeasured prompts shouldn’t ship, and you’ve built or run benchmarking/A-B testing practices.
• Leadership & Influence: You’ve hired and grown technical people before, or you’ve owned a roadmap with real stakeholder pressure.
• Client-Facing Problem Decomposition: Demonstrated experience leading discovery with senior customers or stakeholders and turning vague briefs into scoped technical solutions.
• Plain-Language Communication: You can explain agent failure modes, eval results, and architectural trade-offs to a CMO without jargon.
• The "Creative/Technical" Bridge: You can sit in a room with a Creative Director and translate creative direction into concrete system changes.

KPIs & Success Measures

• System Reliability: Reducing the failure rate of complex agent workflows across the platform.
• Architectural Efficiency: Minimizing token usage/latency while increasing output quality.
• Brand Alignment: Automated-evaluation scores of agent output against brand guidelines.
• Adoption at Scale: Core agents adopted and retained across the Pencil user base.
• Client Deployment Success: Custom client workflows delivered on time and adopted by the client.
• Stakeholder Trust: Repeat engagement on strategic accounts and positive feedback on clarity of communication.
• Team Growth: Hiring, retention, and development of the Agent Architecture team.

Benefits

• 25 days PTO plus public holidays (Flexible Time Off scheme)
• Health insurance / private medical cover
• Monthly stipend towards wellness, fitness, and learning and development
• Remote - work from anywhere in your home country (EMEA)
• Enhanced parental leave policies
• Access to Pencil's office in The Shard, London for UK employees
• Flexible working hours