AI Engineer - SC Cleared

Oxford Dynamics Limited; Oxford; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Rapid career progression

Flexible working hours

Hybrid working model

Company pension (NEST) with 4% employer contribution

Private Healthcare

29 days holiday + public holidays

Job summary

A fast-growing deep-tech company in the UK is seeking an AI Engineer to develop and integrate agentic AI systems for defence and national security projects. The role requires active SC clearance and strong Python skills, along with experience in deploying AI solutions in complex environments. Applicants will work on cutting-edge technology, responsible for end-to-end features from design to deployment. Benefits include hybrid working, career progression, private healthcare, and a company pension scheme.

Qualifications

• Commercial experience building multi-agent AI systems in production.
• Hands-on experience with LLM frameworks (LangGraph, LangChain, Haystack).
• Experience deploying AI/ML systems into production environments.

Responsibilities

• Architect, build, and optimise multi-agent AI systems.
• Integrate LLMs and vision-language models into agent workflows.
• Deploy AI systems into cloud and air-gapped environments.

Skills

Active SC clearance

Python

Multi-agent AI systems

LLM frameworks

Cloud platforms (AWS)

Docker

Tools

LangGraph

LangChain

Haystack

Kubernetes

Job description

Active SC clearance is required for this role. We are hiring for multiple positions.

Permanent roles. We will consider contractors with existing clearances on an initial basis.

Salary: Market rate - depending on experience

A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDERS

Oxford Dynamics is at an inflection point.

We operate in some of the most complex and high‑stakes environments in the world - defence, national security, AI and robotics. The decisions we make now will define not just how fast we grow, but who we become.

You will work closely with the entire team. You will be trusted with judgment calls. You will influence the business. And you will see the impact of your work every day.

If you are excited by ownership, pace and purpose - and by building something that genuinely matters - we would love to hear from you.

Who We Are

Founded in 2020, Oxford Dynamics is a fast‑growing UK deep‑tech company developing AI and robotic systems designed to operate in mission‑critical environments.

Our flagship AVIS (A Very Intelligent System) AI framework fuses multi‑modal data - text, imagery, telemetry and sensor feeds - enabling operators to interrogate complex information at speed and make better decisions under pressure. Our STRIDER robotic platform performs autonomous tasks in hazardous environments, protecting people while extending operational reach.

Our ambition is simple but demanding: to converge AI and robotics so machines can sense, understand and act in complex, real‑world environments.

We work with defence and security organisations internationally to help protect nations, infrastructure and lives.

What You Will Be Doing

We are looking for AI engineers who build and ship agentic AI systems in production. You will work at the cutting edge of agentic and generative AI - designing multi‑agent pipelines, integrating large language models and vision‑language models into real workflows, and deploying them into secure and air‑gapped environments for defence and national security customers.

This is a delivery role. You will own features end‑to‑end - from design through to deployment in constrained environments where reliability and security matter more than speed to market.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, build, and optimise multi‑agent AI systems using frameworks such as LangGraph, Haystack, or equivalent
• Integrate LLMs and vision‑language models into agent workflows for reasoning, search, summarisation, and task execution
• Deploy AI systems into cloud, on‑premises, and air‑gapped environments
• Build production‑ready pipelines from data ingestion through to inference
• Experience with observability for AI systems, including agent behaviour, model performance, and failure modes
• Collaborate with engineers, product leads, and customers to translate requirements into working systems
• Contribute to evaluation frameworks, system integration, and performance tracking
• Act as a technical authority for agentic AI - setting design patterns for junior engineers

Required

• Active SC clearance
• Commercial experience building multi‑agent or agentic AI systems in production
• Strong Python skills and hands‑on experience with LLM frameworks (LangGraph, LangChain, Haystack, or similar)
• Experience deploying AI/ML systems into production environments
• Familiarity with Docker, Git, and cloud platforms (AWS preferred)
• Understanding of secure deployment patterns - air‑gapped, on‑premises, or sovereign cloud

Preferred

• Experience with multimodal reasoning
• Experience with edge or offline AI deployments
• Familiarity with Kubernetes (EKS/OpenShift) for monitoring and managing deployed applications
• MLOps experience - model evaluation, monitoring, reproducibility
• Observability tooling for agentic systems (model drift, agent behaviour, performance monitoring)
• Experience with agent orchestration patterns and inter‑agent communication protocols (e.g. A2A)
• Familiarity with MCPs for tool and context integration in agentic systems
• Familiarity with secure‑by‑design development principles (ISO 27001, NIST, OWASP)
• Experience in defence, national security, or similarly regulated environments
• Contributions to open‑source AI/ML projects

Soft Skills

• Delivery‑focused - you ship working systems, not prototypes
• Comfortable operating across the stack when needed
• Strong communicator - can present to technical and non‑technical stakeholders
• Thrives in small teams with high ownership

Why Oxford Dynamics?

Join the most exciting growth area in the UK: AI and Robotics! Every member of the Oxford Dynamics team has a major impact on the products and services we provide. Regardless of job title, you will get to make a real difference and learn from colleagues about all areas of our business.

Benefits include

• Rapid career progression and personal growth
• Flexible working hours
• Opportunity to shape the future of a fast‑growing business
• Hybrid working model
• Company pension (NEST) with 4% employer contribution
• Private Healthcare
• 29 days holiday + public holidays

Oxford Dynamics is committed to creating an inclusive team experience for all. Regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, or parental status, we believe our work is at its best when everyone feels free to be their authentic self.