Senior Software Engineer 1 (MLOps) in Oxford

We’re Aioi R&D Lab - an AI tech hub in one of the fastest-growing insurance companies.

We research and develop AI systems that catapult insurance from a slow-moving, traditional past into a data-driven, technology-lead and society-defining future.

We’re looking for dynamic, driven professionals like you to help evolve our business in new directions.

You’ll need first-class credentials and a proactive attitude to help us drive the change the underpins our mission.

As a Senior Software Engineer 1 (ML Ops) you’ll be contributing to the design, build, and operation of cloud infrastructure supporting a privacy-preserving AI research programme, working under the direction of the Technical Lead.

You will help deliver model hosting and training infrastructure, secure data storage, and agentic development tooling - the foundations the programme’s research tracks depend on.

If you’d like to be part of our brighter future, and share in our success, we’d love to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the design, build, and operation of cloud infrastructure supporting a privacy-preserving AI research programme, working under the direction of the Technical Lead.
• Help deliver model hosting and training infrastructure, secure data storage, and agentic development tooling – the foundations the programme’s research tracks depend on.
• Write clean, well-tested, maintainable code and contribute to shared engineering standards, CI/CD pipelines, and documentation.
• Support integration of infrastructure components with partner environments and research workflows, troubleshooting issues as they arise.
• Engage actively with technical trade-offs, ask good questions, and learn quickly as tool choices and requirements evolve throughout the programme.
• Working within a multi-partner programme where requirements evolve and final tool choices are not fixed from day one.
• Building robust infrastructure that research teams can depend on.
• Contributing effectively across a broad stack (compute, storage, serving, tooling) rather than specialising in a single area.
• Navigating the balance between moving quickly to support research timelines and maintaining engineering rigor and security standards.
• Growing technical skills and confidence in ML infrastructure through hands-on work, in an environment that values learning.
• Balancing innovation in generative AI with requirements around privacy, data sovereignty, security and operational trust.
• Ensuring that project outputs contribute not only to immediate delivery but also to longer-term reusable capability within the Lab.
• Knowledge, Experience and Qualifications

Essential

• Extensive commercial software experience, with a track record of delivering working, maintainable code in a team setting.
• Solid Python skills, including core data and ML-adjacent libraries (pandas, numpy, scikit-learn) and good instincts around code structure, testing and packaging.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure at a practical level: deploying services, managing storage, working with access controls.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and Helm.
• AWS experience preferred, strong experience with another provider considered.
• Experience with ML infrastructure or data engineering: training pipelines, model serving, experiment tracking, or data pipelines.
• Comfortable with CI/CD pipelines, version control, and containerisation as everyday tools, not just concepts.
• Able to engage with technically complex and ambiguous problems, ask good clarifying questions, research and develop new skills, and work iteratively toward solutions.
• Good communication skills: can explain what they’ve built, justify their decisions, explain what trade-offs they made, and flag up what they’re unsure about.

Desirable

• Exposure to LLM serving or fine-tuning workflows, even at small scale or in personal projects.
• Understanding of data governance or security requirements in regulated industries.
• Interest in privacy-preserving techniques (differential privacy, secure computation).
• Experience with agentic AI frameworks (Lang Graph, Auto Gen, Crew AI, or similar).
• Familiarity with Kubeflow, KServe, or similar ML orchestration platforms.
• Familiarity with Git Ops / Infrastructure-as-code (e. g. Flux, Terraform).

Why Join Us?

We're committed to your growth, providing the support to excel in your current role whilst offering opportunities to step into new challenges and drive your career forward.

We realise that we need to be a good fit for you above all else – so here’s what you can enjoy about AND-E:

Recognised as the Best Large Insurance Employer: We are proud to have been named the Best Large Insurance Employer for 2023 at the prestigious British Insurance Awards.

Unmatched Work-Life Balance.

Competitive Salaries and Benefits Package: We offer competitive salaries that recognise your skills and expertise.

We champion choice, flexibility, and balance in both work and home life.

Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion ensures everyone feels valued and supported — including embracing neurodiversity and providing the tools needed to thrive.

We like to think our benefits package is one of the best, focusing on colleagues’ health, wealth, and lifestyle. We offer:

• 28 Days annual leave with the option to buy/sell up to 5 days holiday*
• Private Medical & Permanent Health Insurance*
• 4 x Annual salary Life Assurance*
• Health and
• Wellbeing

Benefits: Including money back on health-related expenses (optician, dental, physio, etc.), Flu Jab vouchers, Virtual GP service, Employee Assistance Programme, and enhanced family-friendly policies (baby bonus & pension advisory service)

• Financial and
• Lifestyle

Support: Offers financial flexibility through Wagestream*, annual season ticket loans*, cycle scheme*, and £250 towards driving lessons for you and dependents*.

• Subject to company performance and completion of probation

Aioi Nissay Dowa Europe is committed to promoting equal opportunities in employment.

Employees and job applicants will receive equal treatment regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation (Protected Characteristics)

At AND-E, equal opportunity is more than a policy—it’s a promise.

We welcome applications from all individuals regardless of age, disability, gender identity, marital status, pregnancy, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic.

Reasonable adjustments: If you require any adjustments to support you during our recruitment process, please let us know.

We’re committed to making the process accessible and are happy to help