Acuity Inc. (NYSE: AYI) is a market-leading industrial technology company. We use technology to solve problems in spaces, light and more things to come. Through our two business segments, Acuity Brands Lighting (ABL) and Acuity Intelligent Spaces (AIS), we design, manufacture, and bring to market products and services that make a valuable difference in people’s lives. We achieve growth through the development of innovative new products and services, including lighting, lighting controls, building management solutions, and an audio, video and control platform. We focus on customer outcomes and drive growth and productivity to increase market share and deliver superior returns. We look to aggressively deploy capital to grow the business and to enter attractive new verticals. Acuity Inc. is based in Atlanta, Georgia, with operations across North America, Europe and Asia. The Company is powered by approximately 13,000 dedicated and talented associates. Visit us at www.acuityinc.com.
Job Summary
This role is for a Lead Engineer (AI and Python) who wants to influence technical direction through strong engineering judgement and collaboration. You will technically lead a high impact AI engineering team and play a defining role in how AI driven software is built across a growing and ambitious organisation. This position comes with real ownership, where your technical judgement directly shapes outcomes. You will work in close partnership with key business and technical stakeholders, collaborating to define cloud native, container first solutions designed for enterprise use from day one. This is a hands‑on technical leadership role. You will write production code, drive proof‑of‑concepts, and validate architectural decisions through implementation. Alongside this, you will set technical standards, guide design choices, and raise the bar for the team. You will also play a central role in hiring and building your team, reinforcing a strong engineering culture and a consistently high technical bar. AI is central to the mission. You will operate at the intersection of exploratory AI development and enterprise grade engineering, turning emerging ideas into secure, scalable production systems. You will work alongside a friendly, collaborative team of high calibre engineers who take immense pride in their work, value good engineering practices, and support each other in building platforms and teams that underpin future capabilities.
Key Tasks & Responsibilities (Essential Functions)
Lead the technical direction of a high‑impact AI engineering team, staying hands‑on‑and setting the pace through example.
Design and deliver cloud‑native, container‑first services that are built to scale and ready for real enterprise use.
Partner closely with architects and key stakeholders to shape architecture, align on patterns, and translate strategy into practical engineering decisions.
Take AI‑enabled capabilities from early exploration and proof‑of‑concept through to secure, reliable, production deployments.
Write high‑quality Python code and help define the engineering bar for maintainability, testing, and operational excellence.
Drive good engineering practices across code quality, CI/CD, containerisation, Kubernetes, and cloud operations, keeping teams focused on outcomes.
Guide technical trade‑offs and prioritisation, balancing innovation with pragmatism and long‑term platform health.
Play a central role in hiring and onboarding, helping build a high‑calibre team and strengthening a collaborative, supportive culture.
Mentor and coach engineers through reviews, pairing, and technical feedback, enabling growth and shared ownership.
Stay current with fast‑moving AI and cloud technologies, assessing new approaches and introducing them where they add real value.
Skills And Minimum Experience Required
Strong professional software engineering background (typically 10+ years, but impact and evidence of delivery are valued over a specific number).
Proven technical leadership in a delivery team, such as leading design discussions, setting technical direction, mentoring engineers, and raising engineering standards.
Strong Python engineering skills, including maintainable OOP design, typing, asynchronous programming, and building robust service layers (FastAPI preferred).
Demonstrated experience designing and building REST APIs and service integrations, with a focus on reliability, observability, and performance.
Prior cloud experience mandatory, with hands‑on delivery on at least one hyperscaler (Azure preferred; AWS/GCP also valued).
Container experience essential, including packaging, running, and troubleshooting containerised services across environments.
Kubernetes experience highly preferred, including deploying, operating, debugging services in a cluster (or strong motivation & evidence of learning quickly if you have deep container/cloud experience).
Experience with modern DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Azure DevOps) and pragmatic Git branching/release strategies.
Strong quality mindset, including unit/integration testing (PyTest), code review habits, and balancing delivery pace with engineering discipline.
Solid understanding of security fundamentals for modern services, including AuthN/AuthZ (OpenID/OAuth2) and secure build/deploy practices (e.g., container scanning).
Comfortable with Agile environments (Scrum/Kanban; SAFe exposure helpful) and collaborating effectively across product, architecture, and data/AI stakeholders.
Experience with SQL and NoSQL data stores, including data modelling and operating services backed by document, key‑value, or relational (PostgreSQL preferred) and non‑relational databases.
Solid core Linux skills, comfortable working in Linux environments for development, debugging, deployment, and operational troubleshooting.
Preferred Skills And Experience
Experience building with Generative AI and/or Agentic AI frameworks and patterns (MAF, LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, Hugging Face, OpenAI APIs, Claude Code), with a pragmatic approach to taking PoCs to production readiness.
Familiarity with event‑driven architecture and scalable integration patterns across enterprise systems and IoT‑adjacent environments.
Azure platform depth (e.g., Resource Groups, VNETs, Cosmos DB, serverless, etc.) and/or broader cloud platform engineering experience.
DevSecOps experience, including code‑to‑cloud security practices and improving pipelines and guardrails without slowing teams down.
Demonstrable interest in modern AI concepts (transformers/attention, deep learning foundations) and staying current in a fast‑moving technical landscape.
General knowledge of web application development, including familiarity with modern frontend frameworks and patterns; exposure to React and/or Next.js is a plus.
Other
Agile: Jira, Azure DevOps
Collaboration: Confluence, Miro, Teams
Development: Git, VSCode, Docker
Testing: Postman, PyTest
Cloud & DevOps: Azure, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions
We value diversity and are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, ethnicity or national origin, disability, pregnancy, religion, covered veteran status, protected genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Accommodation for Applicants with Disabilities: As an equal opportunity employer, Acuity Inc. is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in its application process for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans. If you have difficulty using our online system due to a disability and need an accommodation, you may contact us at (770) 922‑9000, select option 4. Please clearly indicate the type of accommodation you are requesting and for what requisition.
Any unsolicited resumes sent to Acuity Inc. from a third party, such as an agency recruiter, will be considered Acuity Inc. property. Acuity Inc. will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume.
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