Senior AI Engineer

Job Description

We Need a Doer – Senior AI Engineer

We’re hiring a Senior AI Engineer for an exciting early-stage AI startup with £2M in seed funding. This role is not for managers sitting in meetings all day – we need a doer. Someone who writes production code, prototypes at lightning speed, and loves turning ideas into scalable AI systems.

You’ll work directly with the founders (CEO/CTO) to drive our AI initiatives end-to-end, from research and proof-of-concept to production deployment. Legal-tech experience is a strong plus as we build transformative AI solutions for the legal industry.

Why Join Us

• AI-first legal-tech startup backed by £2M seed funding
• You’ll be the technical owner of the AI stack from day one
• Fast-moving, hands-on environment where your work directly shapes the product
• Competitive daily rate (£400–£450 outside IR35) and equity potential
  
  

What You’ll Do

• Lead AI strategy and execution in a high-ambiguity, high-opportunity startup setting
• Build, train, and deploy state-of-the-art models (deep learning, NLP, LLMs, computer vision)
• Design scalable ML pipelines and infrastructure for experimentation, versioning, and monitoring
• Rapidly prototype and productionize AI features with tight integration into our platform
• Stay at the bleeding edge of AI research and tools, bringing innovative approaches to our stack
• Mentor junior engineers as we scale and help grow a world-class AI/ML team
  
  

Key Responsibilities

Hands-On Development

• End-to-end AI pipeline design: data collection, feature engineering, model training, validation, deployment
• Prototype novel models (CNNs, Transformers, graph networks) using PyTorch, TensorFlow, or similar frameworks
• working knowledge of Infrastructure and cloud is critical (AWS/GCP/Azure) with containerization (Docker/Kubernetes)
  
  

Strategic Leadership

• Shape our AI roadmap aligned with product milestones and investor expectations
• Spot opportunities for AI-driven advantages (proprietary data, novel architectures, LLM applications)
• Translate ambiguous product challenges into technically feasible AI solutions
  
  

Data & Infrastructure

• Build and maintain scalable data pipelines (ETL/ELT) and data lakes/warehouses
• Establish ML Ops best practices: CI/CD for models, drift detection, and robust monitoring
  
  

Team Growth & Mentorship

• Recruit, mentor, and set standards for a growing AI/ML team
• Foster a culture of rapid experimentation and iterative delivery
  
  

Minimum Qualifications

What We’re Looking For

• 10+ years total experience, 3+ years in senior/lead roles shipping AI/ML products end-to-end
• Proven ability to build and deploy deep learning models (CNNs, Transformers, LLMs) in production
• Strong Python skills and expertise in ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, etc.)
• Solid software engineering background: data structures, algorithms, distributed systems, Git
• Experience designing scalable ML infrastructure on cloud platforms
• Excellent communication skills and a track record of leading in ambiguous startup environments
  
  

Preferred (Nice-to-Have)

• Legal-tech or related domain expertise
• Experience with large language models (GPT, BERT, etc.) and prompt engineering
• Familiarity with MLOps tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases, Kubeflow)
• Prior experience at early-stage startups taking AI products from 0 → 1
• Open-source contributions or publications in top-tier AI/ML conferences
  
  

Soft Skills & Cultural Fit

We’re looking for a builder with:

• A bias for action: favors shipping MVPs quickly over perfection
• An ownership mentality: treats the system like their own
• A collaborative mindset: works cross-functionally with product and engineering
• A growth-oriented approach: learns fast, mentors others, and adapts
  
  

Send your CV and a brief cover letter (subject: Senior AI Engineer – [Your Name]) highlighting:

• A recent end-to-end AI/ML system you built and deployed (tech stack + impact)
• Any leadership or mentoring experience in high-paced environments
• Why you’re excited to join a high-growth AI startup
  
  

We review applications on a rolling basis and aim to schedule initial calls within 2 weeks.

Equal Opportunity

We celebrate diversity and are committed to building a team that reflects a wide variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills.

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