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. check(event) ; career-website-detail-template-2 => apply(record.id,meta)" mousedown="lyte-button => check(event)" final-style="background-color:#68B54C;border-color:#68B54C;color:white;" final-class="lyte-button lyteBackgroundColorBtn lyteSuccess" lyte-rendered="">