AI Engineer (KTP Associate), CSEE

University of Essex; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Essex is seeking a KTP Associate for a transformative AI project with Eckersley O'Callaghan, focusing on the integration of multi-modal AI tools into engineering workflows. This fixed-term position offers opportunities for personal development and extensive support while working in a dynamic, collaborative environment.

Benefits

Personal development budget of £5333

Management training and mentoring

Access to university resources

Supervision by world-leading academics

Qualifications

• PhD or Masters with a publication track record.
• Experience in user interface development and working independently.
• Ability to strategically plan work packages.

Responsibilities

• Create an AI-powered tool for structural and façade engineering design.
• Develop user interface and implement retrieval pipelines.
• Conduct user testing and produce research papers on the project.

Skills

Advanced skills in Java

Advanced skills in Python

Advanced skills in C#

Knowledge of Large Language Models

Knowledge of Vision-Language Models

Knowledge of data architecture

Understanding of data lakes

User Interface development

Excellent written and spoken English

Well organised

Education

PhD or Masters in Computer Science or AI

Job description

KTP

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) are a unique UK-wide activity that help businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity by making better use of the knowledge, technology and skills within universities, colleges and research organisations. Further information is available at: www.ktponline.org.uk

THE PROJECT

The University of Essex in partnership with Eckersley O'Callaghan offers an exciting opportunity to a graduate with the relevant skills and knowledge to build and integrate a bespoke multi-modal AI tool for the automation of structural and façade engineering design workflows, based on a catalogue of previous project data.

This post is fixed term for 32 months and is based at Eckersley O'Callaghan's offices in London.

DUTIES OF THE POST

The duties of the post will include:

• Identify business requirements for the AI-powered tool approaches suitable for Eckersley O'Callaghan Ltd and the underlying project.
• Create a basic pipeline that queries an AI model in a black-box setting to retrieve the most relevant designs based on user input.
• Assess Eckersley O'Callaghan's current IT, Data Infrastructure, and software solutions, and clearly understand further functionality, features, automations and capabilities needed.
• Form a Working Group to ensure exploitation occurs at the most appropriate time and to steer the project commercially.
• Explore the already existing data structures, databases, and Reporting and Analytics within the company, relate them to the project and define the initial system architecture.
• Build a foundational dataset for developing and testing the AI-powered tool.
• Develop the user interface (UI) or frontend for the AI-powered tool that provides an intuitive and seamless experience for users.
• Implement RAG pipeline for retrieval of relevant documents and generation of design recommendations.
• User testing and validation of the AI-powered tool.
• Write the testing and evaluation report.
• Write research papers on the developed AI-powered tool for submission to conferences and journals.

These duties are a guide to the work that the post holder will initially be required to undertake. They may be changed from time to time to meet changing circumstances.

KEY REQUIREMENTS

• PhD or Masters in computer science, AI, or relevant discipline with a publication track record.
• Advanced skills in a relevant programming language (Java/Python/C#).
• Version control of best practice, annotation of code.
• Knowledge and experience of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision-Language Models (VLMs).
• Knowledge of data architecture, data cleansing and data lakes that enable training AI models with proprietary legacy databases.
• Experience or knowledge in developing and deploying to production AI solutions based on open source LLMs, VLMs and RAG models, utilising proprietary knowledge base.
• User Interface development.
• Advanced skills in a relevant programming language (Java/Python/C#).
• Communicating complex technical concepts to a range of audiences.
• Excellent written and spoken English.
• Ability to collaborate with individuals with different abilities and skills, building relationships.
• Well organised, ability to strategically plan work packages to meet milestones.
• Ability to work independently.

BENEFITS

As a KTP Associate, the post will offer the following benefits:

• A personal development budget of £5333 (exclusive of salary).
• Management training and mentoring by an Innovate UK KTP Adviser.
• An interesting and challenging role, with exposure to a variety of stakeholders.
• Full access to university resources to complete the project.
• World-leading Academic and Company project supervision, with project support by a dedicated, sector leading KTP Office.

LOCATION

Eckersley O'Callaghan

9th Floor

236 Gray's Inn Road

Saint Giles

London

WC1X 8HB

Please see the attached job pack, which contains a full job description and person specification which outlines the full duties, skills, qualifications and experience needed for this role plus more information relating to the post. We recommend you read this information carefully before making an application. Applications should be made on-line, but if you would like advice or help in making an application, or need information in a different format, please contact [e-mail]

*More information: Working at the University