We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to play a pivotal role in shaping and evolving M&S’s AI-powered recommendation experiences. This team provides the intelligent services that power personalised customer journeys across web and mobile, helping millions of customers discover products that are relevant, inspiring, and tailored to their needs.
Your “customers” are product teams, engineers, data scientists, and ultimately millions of M&S customers and your mission is to improve the quality, relevance, and reliability of AI-driven experiences through robust engineering, intelligent evaluation frameworks, and production-ready AI systems.
This is a role for an engineer who is excited by applied AI, recommendation systems, and building customer-facing products at scale. You will help drive the next phase of growth for AI Stylist, one of M&S’s flagship AI-powered experiences, as it continues to evolve and scale across our digital channels.
About the Team
Our Recommendations Engineering team is responsible for delivering personalised experiences across M&S digital platforms. We build and operate intelligent systems that help customers discover products, engage with content, and make more informed purchasing decisions.
You will join the team responsible for AI Stylist, a live customer-facing product that combines conversational AI with recommendation capabilities to create highly personalised shopping experiences.
What You'll Do
Your key accountabilities will include:
- Build and evolve AI-powered services using Python, supporting highly scalable customer-facing experiences.
- Design and implement evaluation frameworks that measure and improve the quality of AI and LLM-powered systems.
- Drive continuous improvement of AI Stylist through structured evaluation, experimentation, and data-driven insights.
- Apply advanced techniques such as LLM-as-a-Judge and other evaluation methodologies to assess recommendation and response quality.
- Work with non-deterministic AI systems, identifying opportunities to improve relevance, consistency, and customer outcomes.
- Integrate AI services into broader digital platforms, APIs, and recommendation ecosystems.
Who You Are
- A strong software engineer with extensive Python experience delivering production-grade applications and services.
- Knowledge in building AI-enabled products, particularly recommendation systems, conversational AI, or customer-facing intelligent applications.
- Hands-on experience designing and implementing evaluation frameworks for LLMs and AI systems.
- Comfortable working with probabilistic, non-deterministic systems and using data to drive continuous improvement.
- Strong understanding of how AI systems differ from traditional software and how to measure success within those environments.
- Comfortable taking ambiguous AI challenges and translating them into practical, scalable solutions.
What’s in it for you
Being a part of M&S is exactly that – playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.
Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special
- After completing your probationary period, you’ll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
- Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
- Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
- A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
- A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
- Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
- Leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
- Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
- A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.
Everyone’s Welcome
We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating, and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet.
Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers, and suppliers.
We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and win together.
If you’d benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please let us know when completing your application.
#hybridrole
Skills Required
- Extensive Python experience building production-grade applications and services
- Experience building AI-enabled products, particularly recommendation systems or conversational AI
- Hands-on experience designing and implementing evaluation frameworks for LLMs and AI systems
- Experience working with probabilistic, non-deterministic systems and using data for continuous improvement
- Ability to translate ambiguous AI challenges into practical, scalable solutions
- Experience integrating AI services into APIs and broader digital platforms
- Familiarity with LLM evaluation methodologies (e.g., LLM-as-a-Judge)
What We Do
At M&S, we're dedicated to being the most trusted retailer, prioritising quality and delivering value. Every day, we bring the magic of M&S to our customers, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us. For over a century, we've set the standard, doing the right thing and embracing innovation. Today, with over 65,000 colleagues serving 32 million customers globally, we're putting quality products at the heart of everything we do. Tomorrow holds boundless opportunities with us. We're pioneering digital innovation and shaping the future of retail where our values drive every action. We stay close to customers and colleagues, always curious and connected. Our decisions are bold, our actions ambitious. Transparency is paramount, with straightforward, honest communication. We're constantly innovating, always striving for the best. Our focus is on aiming higher and winning together, combined with wise financial decisions to secure our future. Join us at M&S to shape the future of retail.
