Senior AI Engineer

Job Title: Senior Applied AI Engineer Location: Manchester (Hybrid) Salary: Up to £80,000 DOE A fast-growing technical consultancy is looking for a Senior Applied AI Engineer to join a team working at the forefront of applied machine learning and generative AI. This is a forward-deployed engineering role where strong software engineering, applied AI, and hands-on client problem solving sit alongside each other every day. You will take ownership of complex technical workstreams, help shape project direction, support other engineers, and work directly with clients to turn ambiguous AI opportunities into reliable production systems. The consultancy works across a broad range of clients including startups, multinational organisations, and regulated sectors, giving you genuine breadth of exposure and the chance to make tangible real-world impact. The culture is collaborative, technically rigorous, and genuinely passionate about building AI that makes a positive difference. What we are looking for * Minimum 2:1 from a Russell Group university in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related discipline. Relevant postgraduate degree is a bonus * Strong experience building production-grade software in Python, including training and serving ML models, building inference services, integrating data stores, and deploying AI-powered applications * Experience with ML or generative AI systems including LLM-powered applications, RAG pipelines, prompt engineering, model evaluation, agents, and model serving * Experience designing and delivering cloud-based systems on AWS, GCP, or Azure, with modern DevOps practices and infrastructure-as-code tooling * Fluency in core tooling including Git, Unix/Linux, Docker, and common AI and MLOps tools * Comfortable making technical decisions across a project or workstream, balancing delivery speed, reliability, security, and maintainability Particularly strong candidates will also have * Experience leading technical workstreams end to end from discovery and prototyping through to production deployment * A track record of mentoring junior engineers and contributing to high engineering standards across a team * Experience contributing to R\&D or technical content such as blogs or conference talks * Familiarity with agile delivery methodologies and sprint-based ways of working Why this role You will be joining a growing consultancy with a strong reputation in open source MLOps and applied AI, with real scope to shape both the technical direction of projects and your own career trajectory. The equity option scheme gives you a genuine stake in what you are building. This role requires existing right to work in the UK. Visa sponsorship is not available. If your background fits, apply below.