AI Engineer - Outside IR35 - Private Equity

AI Engineer Contract: 6-Month Contract Initial (Outside IR35) Location: London (Hybrid) Overview We are supporting a leading private equity firm building an internal AI platform and tooling layer to support its practice areas and Portfolio Management Data (PMD) workflows. This is a key contract opportunity for an experienced AI Engineer to act as the firm's dedicated internal practitioner - designing, deploying and maintaining the AI tooling that makes internal functions and portfolio workflows materially more effective. What you'll do: • Partner with practice teams to scope and prioritise AI opportunities, balancing quick wins against platform-level builds. • Build the internal AI platform - auth, connectors, state management, observability and reusable components - and architect the multi-agent orchestration layer on top. • Ship production AI tools including document Q&A (SharePoint-integrated), covenant monitoring, transcription/analysis tools, and AI-powered project tracking. • Implement access controls, credential management, audit logging and GDPR-aware patterns for sensitive deal data. • Run training and document patterns to champion responsible AI use. What we're looking for: • 5–8 years' software development or AI engineering experience. • Proven production deployment of LLM applications, RAG pipelines and multi-agent systems. • Strong Python; experience with Anthropic/OpenAI APIs and orchestration frameworks (LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, Autogen or similar). • Proficient with Azure: App Services, Functions, Entra ID, AI Services, Cosmos DB. • Working React/TypeScript for internal UIs. • Prior PE, professional services or financial services exposure highly desirable