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Senior AI Engineer
We Need a Doer – Senior AI Engineer
Contract Role- Outside IR 35
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
- Productionize models in cloud environments (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
What We’re Looking For
Minimum Qualifications
- 10+ years total experience, 5+ years in senior/lead roles shipping AI/ML products end-to-end
- working knowledge of Infrastructure and cloud is critical.
- 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.
