AI Engineer

Scrumconnect Consulting; Newcastle upon Tyne; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Scrumconnect Consulting is seeking an AI Engineer to build the application-level AI capability inside a large-scale AI adoption programme for a central government department. You will work where LLMs, retrieval systems, and agentic workflows become working features integrated with the department’s services.

You’ll join a Rainbow Team of civil servants, implementing guardrails and standards set by the leads and architects, delivering practical AI solutions within secure government environments.

Qualifications

• Experience building applications using LLMs or foundation models via API or self-hosted
• Experience with RAG architectures, vector databases, and embedding-based retrieval
• Strong Python programming and API design/integration skills
• Prompt engineering with evaluation-driven approach
• Familiarity with agentic/orchestration frameworks and multi-step AI workflows
• Comfortable in secure, regulated environments handling sensitive data
• Experience delivering digital services within UK central government or 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

Responsibilities

• Build & Integrate RAG pipelines, prompt templates, and agentic workflows into application logic connecting with legacy and multi-cloud systems
• Prompt engineering, evaluation and iteration; run structured evaluations to track quality, retrieval accuracy and hallucination rate
• Implement guardrails and human-in-the-loop checkpoints as defined by leads
• Contribute to Docs-as-Code artifacts supporting the OKUA knowledge-transfer framework

Skills

LLMs

RAG Systems

Python

APIs

Prompt engineering

Agentic workflows

Secure environments

UK government experience

GOV.UK Standard

Open-source tooling

Job description

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
• 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.