Principal AI Consultant

Principal AI Consultant

Salary: £100,000 – £120,000 per annum (depending on experience). Up to 15% discretionary bonus

Location: Remote – must be based within the UK. Occasional visits to see customers and the team.

Interview process: Two rounds. 1. Get to know you chat with the People Recruitment Manager; 2. Technical competency with the Hiring Lead and a Team Member.

About Advancing Analytics

Advancing Analytics is a market leader in delivering bleeding‑edge analytical solutions for customers worldwide. We help businesses innovate with AI and ML solutions.

Role Overview

On an average day you will help customers implement large language models and deploy end‑to‑end ML pipelines to solve complex challenges.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise‑scale AI consulting engagements, acting as technical lead or solution architect, with end‑to‑end accountability for delivery outcomes, technical quality, and stakeholder alignment from discovery through production.
• Design production‑grade ML and GenAI solutions, including RAG and agentic AI patterns.
• Design and review LLM‑based systems in enterprise environments, including prompt engineering, fine‑tuning, guardrails, and responsible AI practices.
• Design and oversee AI agent architectures with tool use, memory, multi‑step reasoning using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, or CrewAI, or equivalent.
• Apply LLMOps and MLOps practices, including evaluation, monitoring, CI/CD for AI workflows, and operating AI systems reliably in production.
• Guide teams with production‑quality Python, setting engineering standards and guiding through complex delivery challenges.
• Apply AI governance, compliance, and delivery risk principles, including responsible AI, bias testing, and auditability in regulated industries.
• Consult and communicate with senior stakeholders, explain architectural trade‑offs, and mentor senior consultants and engineers.

Required Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent depth of industry experience in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Mathematics, or a closely related discipline.
• Proven experience leading enterprise‑scale AI consulting engagements with end‑to‑end accountability.
• Expertise in designing production‑grade ML and GenAI solutions, including RAG and agentic AI patterns.
• Strong experience with LLM‑based systems, prompt engineering, fine‑tuning, guardrails, and responsible AI practices.
• Advanced capability to design AI agent architectures with tool use, memory, and multi‑step reasoning.
• Authority in LLMOps and MLOps, evaluating, monitoring, CI/CD for AI workflows, operating AI systems reliably.
• Expert‑level knowledge of the Databricks ecosystem – Unity Catalog, Mosaic AI, Model Serving, feature engineering, Lakehouse Monitoring, Lakebase, and governance‑led Lakehouse architectures.
• Proficiency in production‑quality Python.
• Deep understanding of AI governance, compliance, responsible AI, bias testing, and auditability in regulated industries.
• Excellent consulting and communication skills, influencing senior stakeholders, explaining trade‑offs, mentoring.

Nice to Have

• Strategic and architectural experience with Microsoft Azure, Azure‑native AI and data platforms, reference architectures, and aligning Azure AI services with enterprise security and governance requirements.
• Experience with advanced agent tooling and orchestration, including MCP servers, Unity Catalog functions, and governed tool‑execution patterns.
• Familiarity with LLM and agent evaluation frameworks such as Mosaic AI Agent Evaluation, Garak, or bespoke evaluation harnesses.
• Strong background in advanced machine learning, including deep learning with PyTorch, computer vision methods, NLP pipelines, or graph‑based data processing.
• Knowledge of cloud infrastructure and modern deployment practices, including Terraform or Bicep, Kubernetes, serverless architectures, and secure multi‑tenant designs.
• Exposure to AI security, red teaming, and adversarial testing, including prompt‑injection defence and frameworks such as NIST AI 600‑1 or the EU AI Act.
• Experience leading delivery in Agile environments (Scrum, Kanban), adapting methodologies to research‑heavy AI and GenAI projects.

What it’s like to work here

We are a small, collaborative, and inclusive team that values ownership and continuous learning. Our partnerships with Microsoft, Databricks, AWS, Sigma, Tabular Editor and dbt Labs give you access to cutting‑edge technology and industry events.

We offer competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package, including:

• Industry matching maternity and paternity policy
• Private medical and dental care plus eye care scheme
• Health and well‑being supplement
• 25 days annual leave, birthday leave and charity leave
• Away days with the team
• Flexible working hours
• Electric car scheme

Our values

• Advancing – drive innovation and push the boundaries of possibility.
• Come as you are – inclusive environment welcoming everyone.
• Zero burnout – no pressure to break the point.
• We all level up together – support continuous development.
• Transparency – no secrets, open communication.

Equal Opportunity

We are an equal opportunity employer; all applicants will be considered without regard to age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, veteran status, neurodiversity or disability status.

This role profile is intended to provide an overview of the responsibilities and qualifications required for the Principal AI Consultant role. It is not an exhaustive list and may be subject to change to meet the needs of the organisation.