At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and build advanced AI systems for real-time decision-making in critical environments.
- Company: Premier UK deep-tech venture at the forefront of AI and robotics.
- Benefits: Competitive day rate, hybrid work model, and opportunities for technical leadership.
- Other info: Fast-paced environment with opportunities for mentorship and career growth.
- Why this job: Join a mission-driven team to protect national infrastructure and save lives with cutting-edge technology.
- Qualifications: Active UK DV Clearance and proven experience in commercial AI delivery.
Location: London (Hybrid)
Contract Type: Contract
Day rate: 700 Outside
Clearance Required: Active UK DV Clearance (Mandatory)
The Opportunity
We are partnering with a premier UK deep-tech venture that sits at the cutting edge of AI, robotics, and national security. They build advanced software frameworks that fuse complex, multi-modal data streams (sensor feeds, telemetry, imagery, and text) to enable real-time decision-making in high-stakes, mission-critical environments. With multiple positions open due to rapid growth, they are looking for production-focused AI Engineers who want high ownership, fast-paced delivery, and the chance to deploy agentic systems that protect critical national infrastructure and save lives.
Key Responsibilities
- Architect & Build: Design, optimize, and scale robust multi-agent AI pipelines and orchestration frameworks.
- Model Integration: Integrate LLMs and vision-language models (VLMs) into workflows optimized for reasoning, search, and autonomous task execution.
- Secure Deployment: Package and deploy AI systems into highly secure, cloud, on-premises, and air-gapped environments.
- Production MLOps: Build end-to-end data ingestion and inference pipelines with a heavy focus on system reliability over raw speed to market.
- Observability & Evaluation: Implement monitoring tooling to track agent behavior, model performance, drift, and unexpected failure modes.
- Technical Leadership: Serve as a subject matter expert for agentic AI, helping establish engineering patterns and mentoring junior developers.
Technical Requirements
Must-Have:
- Active UK DV Clearance. (Applications without this cannot be considered).
- Commercial AI Delivery: A proven track record of shipping multi-agent or agentic AI frameworks into live production environments.
- Core Software Engineering: Exceptional Python skills alongside hands-on experience with LLM orchestration tools (e.g., LangGraph, LangChain, Haystack, or similar).
- Modern DevOps: Strong experience with Docker, Git, and cloud infrastructure.
- Secure Architecture: Solid comprehension of secure-by-design principles and deployment patterns for sovereign clouds or disconnected networks.
Great-to-Have:
- Experience with edge computing, offline AI deployments, or local model execution.
- Familiarity with Kubernetes (EKS/OpenShift) for container management and application monitoring.
- Knowledge of advanced agent orchestration protocols (e.g., A2A communication) and Model Context Protocols (MCPs).
- Familiarity with secure development frameworks (OWASP, NIST, ISO 27001).
- Background working in Defence, GovTech, aerospace, or similarly regulated sectors.
DV Cleared Senior AI Engineer in Oxford employer: IO Associates
Join a pioneering deep-tech venture in London that is at the forefront of AI and robotics, where you will have the opportunity to work on mission-critical projects that protect national infrastructure and save lives. With a strong emphasis on employee growth, you will benefit from a collaborative work culture that encourages innovation and technical leadership, alongside competitive remuneration and the flexibility of a hybrid working model. This role not only offers the chance to make a significant impact but also provides a supportive environment for developing your skills in cutting-edge technologies.
