AI Specialist in London

We are flexible regarding which Woods Bagot studio you are based in, options including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, San Francisco, Los Angeles.

About Woods Bagot – Architecture for Worlds Ahead. We design places that meet the challenges and opportunities of our rapidly changing world. Our commitment to exploration, impact and community creates enduring, forward‑thinking outcomes, unlocking humanity’s highest potential. With a global design culture devoted to creativity, resilience, and purpose – we ensure every project contributes to our client’s vision, inspiring future generations.

Woods Bagot is part of the 7C Network. The 7C Network is an integrated network of design and architecture companies that provides “Total Place Design,” a holistic approach to creating transformative environments. It combines capabilities from its constituent brands – including Woods Bagot, ERA‑co, Impact Futures, and Customs Bureau – to offer services in placemaking, sustainability, architecture and interior design, and luxury concepts.

About the Role. You will join an established Design Technology team within the 7C Network, working across and supporting all the 7C brands, including Woods Bagot. The role sits within a focused AI innovation group operating at the intersection of design practice and emerging technology, building tools and systems that make institutional knowledge more accessible and automate existing work processes, across both design and non‑design functions. As an AI Specialist, you will design, build, and operate production‑ready AI systems – including multi‑agent workflows and retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) – that can reason, retrieve, and recommend across complex design and operational problems. You will work closely with a Full Stack Engineer, subject matter experts, designers, and project leadership to deliver solutions that are usable, trustworthy, and impactful in real project environments.

This role is intentionally open to strong candidates from either:

• AI‑experienced backgrounds outside AEC (who can learn the domain quickly with support from SMEs),
• AEC technology/computational backgrounds (who can rapidly deepen AI/LLM system skills as part of the role).

The role spans the full lifecycle: from early prototype through to deployment and ongoing operation, in a fast‑moving environment that values clear thinking, technical depth, and independent decision‑making.

Key Areas of Responsibility:

• Design, build, and deploy production‑ready AI systems, including multi‑agent workflows, for real‑world design and operational use cases.
• Develop and maintain RAG pipelines, including chunking strategies, retrieval methods, reranking, hybrid search, and evaluation.
• Translate ambiguous practice problems into clear, testable system behaviours (e.g., reasoning steps, retrieval logic, and measurable output quality).
• Fine‑tune and/or configure language models and prompts for domain‑specific tasks, using real‑world feedback loops to improve performance and reliability.
• Build and operate data ingestion pipelines, including live feeds from external APIs and web sources where appropriate.
• Integrate agents, models, data sources, and interfaces into cohesive workflows that are reliable, understandable, and usable by project teams.
• Collaborate across design, product, and engineering to ensure solutions align to user needs, constraints, and delivery realities.
• Own delivery from prototype to deployment, including refinement, release, and ongoing operational maintenance.

About You. You are comfortable working within a small, high-trust team environment where you are empowered to make decisions, move quickly, and clearly communicate trade‑offs. You enjoy translating complex domain problems into practical, computable workflows and are confident acting as a bridge between domain experts and technical implementation teams.

You take a pragmatic approach to your work, focusing on outcomes, reliability, and genuine user adoption rather than experimentation for its own sake. You are also able to communicate effectively with both technical and non‑technical audiences, including designers and project leadership teams.

You are fluent in AI‑assisted development workflows and are confident evaluating and adopting new tools and techniques thoughtfully and responsibly as the landscape continues to evolve. Above all, you are motivated by learning and growth. Depending on your background, you will be expected – and supported – to quickly build fluency in either AEC practice contexts or advanced AI/LLM system design.

Required Experience and Skills

General:

• 3–5 years’ experience with clear evidence of delivering production systems that real users rely on – demonstrated through either: AI/ML or LLM‑based systems, or complex computational/automation platforms with operational constraints, measurable performance, and ongoing maintenance.
• Strong proficiency in Python and modern software development practices.
• Confidence making and defending system design decisions independently, with clear reasoning and communication.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills across AI, design, product, and project leadership.

AI systems, agents, and orchestration:

• Hands‑on experience building and deploying multi‑step AI workflows (including multi‑agent systems or equivalent stateful orchestration patterns).
• Comfortable working with modern model APIs and integrating model capabilities into usable product workflows.
• Experience with prompt engineering and evaluation; fine‑tuning experience is beneficial where appropriate.

Systems integration experience: connecting models/agents with data sources, services, and user interfaces into a unified workflow.

RAG and retrieval:

• Experience designing and evaluating RAG pipelines, including chunking, retrieval strategies, reranking, and hybrid search.
• Vector database experience and familiarity with embedding pipelines.
• Understanding of retrieval strengths and failure modes, and ability to improve groundedness and relevance through evaluation and iteration.

Data and Infrastructure:

• Experience building and operating data ingestion pipelines, including from external APIs and/or web sources where appropriate.
• Experience supporting production deployment and ongoing maintenance (e.g., reliability, performance, and iterative improvement).
• Prior experience in architecture/urban design/AEC practice, including spatial planning workflows and/or working with 3D design platforms (e.g., BIM/CAD/GIS ecosystems), and/or experience deploying AI platforms in other complex, knowledge‑intensive domains (e.g., enterprise SaaS, legal, finance, healthcare, regulated or risk‑sensitive environments).

How to Apply. Please submit your up‑to‑date resume via our LinkedIn Job Post: Applications will be treated in the strictest confidence. We do not accept unsolicited resumes or names from agencies. Mandatory requirement: It is an essential requirement that at the time of applying for this position applicants must have the legal right to work in their preferred location/s (i.e. Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, San Francisco, Los Angeles).

7C – Total Place Design Network. 7C is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, colour, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, creed, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, gender expression, and Veteran status. At 7C, we are committed to creating an environment where difference is celebrated, valued and respected, practices are equitable, and our people feel like they belong. We accept that none of us is smarter than all of us. We believe building a diverse workforce is the foundation to creativity and innovative design – it is only by working together that we can realise the potential of our people, clients and communities around us. Through our inclusive leadership and our truly global studio network, you will find your voice and have the support and flexibility required to bring your whole self to work and build an exceptional career.