AI Engineer

Scrumconnect Consulting; Newcastle upon Tyne; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Scrumconnect Consulting in the UK is seeking an AI Engineer to build the application-level AI capability within a large-scale government AI adoption programme. You will turn LLMs, retrieval systems, and agentic workflows into usable features integrated with the department's services.

Based in Newcastle upon Tyne, you will work in a Rainbow Team with civil servants, implementing guardrails and standards set by the Lead AI Engineer and Lead Technical Architect, while ensuring secure handling of

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building applications with LLMs via API or self-hosted.
• Experience with RAG architectures, vector stores and embedding retrieval.
• Strong Python programming and API integration skills.
• Systematic prompt engineering with evaluation-focused mindset.
• Familiarity with agentic/orchestration frameworks and multi-step AI workflows.

Responsibilities

• Implement RAG pipelines and integrate into application logic with legacy and multi-cloud systems.
• Design, test, and iterate prompts; evaluate answer quality and retrieval accuracy.
• Apply guardrails and human-in-the-loop checkpoints in practice.
• Contribute to Docs-as-Code for knowledge transfer within government engineers.

Skills

LLMs

RAG architectures

Vector databases

Python programming

API design

Prompt engineering

Agentic frameworks

Secure environments

Job description

About Scrumconnect Consulting

Scrumconnect Consulting is a multi-award-winning digital consultancy, recognised for delivering impactful and innovative technology solutions across UK government departments. Our work has positively influenced the lives of over 40 million UK citizens.

Job Description

About Scrumconnect Consulting

Scrumconnect Consulting is a multi-award-winning digital consultancy, recognised for delivering impactful and innovative technology solutions across UK government departments. Our work has positively influenced the lives of over 40 million UK citizens.

Overview

We're looking for an AI Engineer to build the application-level AI capability inside a large-scale AI adoption programme for a central government department. Where the Machine Learning Engineer trains models and the MLOps Engineer runs the platform, you sit closest to the end product: turning LLMs, retrieval systems, and agentic workflows into working, usable features that integrate with the department's existing services. You'll work inside a collaborative "Rainbow Team" alongside civil servants, implementing the guardrails and standards set by the Lead AI Engineer and Lead Technical Architect.

Key Responsibilities

Build & Integrate

Implement RAG pipelines, prompt templates, and agentic workflows, and wire them into application logic that connects with the department's legacy and multi-cloud systems.

Prompt Engineering & Evaluation

Design, test, and iterate on prompts and retrieval strategies; run structured evaluations to track answer quality, retrieval accuracy, and hallucination rate over time.

Responsible AI in Practice

Implement the specific guardrails and human-in-the-loop checkpoints defined by the leads — this is an execution role, not a policy-setting one.

Documentation & Handover

Contribute to "Docs-as-Code" artifacts supporting the OKUA knowledge-transfer framework, so the features you build can be understood and maintained by internal government engineers.

Required Skills & Experience

• Practical experience building applications using LLMs or other foundation models, via API or self-hosted
• Experience with RAG architectures, vector databases, and embedding-based retrieval
• Solid general-purpose programming (commonly Python) and API design/integration skills
• Prompt engineering with a systematic, evaluation-driven approach rather than trial and error
• Familiarity with agentic/orchestration frameworks and multi-step AI workflows
• Comfortable working within secure, regulated environments and handling sensitive data appropriately

Desirable Experience

• Experience delivering digital services within UK central government or the wider public sector
• Familiarity with GOV.UK Service Standard expectations
• Exposure to open-source LLM tooling or communities
• Familiarity with AI/ML tooling on AWS, Azure, or GCP

Location and Working Pattern

Hybrid, based from Newcastle upon Tyne, with on-site attendance required for workshops, knowledge-transfer sessions, and onboarding. All production system and data access must be performed solely from within the UK.

How We Work

Our values: Collaboration, Create Value Early, Integrity, Commitment, and Diversity & Inclusion. We welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, including women, people with disabilities, and diverse communities, as well as those seeking flexible working arrangements. As a Disability Confident Level 1 employer, we provide reasonable adjustments throughout recruitment and employment.