Global Banking Institution (Northern Ireland)

Sourcing a Senior Software Engineer to Build Secure Generative AI Tooling in a Specialist Regional Market

The Challenge

Our client was a global banking institution with a major technology hub in Northern Ireland. The engineering team was building a new function focused on generative AI security, specifically protecting large language model applications from adversarial attacks and ensuring responsible AI deployment across regulated environments.

The role needed someone who could do three things well: write production-quality Python, work confidently in cloud-native environments, and understand security engineering well enough to design and test against real AI threats. That combination is rare anywhere in the UK. In Northern Ireland, the available talent pool is smaller still, and most engineers with relevant experience were already employed by large technology firms or financial institutions with strong retention.

The client needed a recruitment partner who understood the local market, could map it accurately, and had the reach to get in front of people who were not going to find the role through a job board.

The Solution

Xist4 ran a research-led search covering the Northern Ireland talent landscape and remote UK regions before any outreach began.

• Worked with engineering leadership to define the hybrid skill profile precisely, separating the genuine requirements across software engineering, AI tooling, and security from the nice-to-haves that were narrowing the pool unnecessarily.
• Profiled 140 relevant engineers, covering compensation expectations, skills distribution, and where competitor firms were hiring, giving the client a realistic view of what was available before the search went live.
• Ran structured outreach to engineers with backgrounds in AI tooling, DevSecOps, and cloud-native development, positioning the role around the scale and novelty of the technical challenge rather than the institutional brand alone.
• Conducted technical and behavioural interviews assessing LLM familiarity, secure coding practice, DevSecOps maturity, and security design thinking at the application layer.
• Delivered weekly market feedback on candidate availability, response rates, and how the role was landing, so the client could make informed decisions throughout rather than waiting for a shortlist to find out.

The Result

Within seven weeks, Xist4 presented a shortlist of senior software engineers with the right blend of AI awareness, secure coding experience, and cloud engineering depth.

The appointed candidate brought a background in AI tooling and cybersecurity and has since led the development of secure prompt validation frameworks and AI-driven compliance automation. In a regional market where this profile does not exist in volume, finding the right person in seven weeks required knowing exactly where to look and how to make the opportunity land credibly with people who had other options.