AI Solutions Engineer (Senior)

Whitespace; Belfast; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working environment

Four-day week during summer holidays

Last Friday of every month off

Early finish every Friday

Job summary

A technology company in Belfast seeks a Senior AI Solutions Engineer to develop and deploy AI-powered applications. The ideal candidate will have at least three years of software engineering experience, focusing on LLM solutions. This hands-on role involves direct client engagement and requires strong programming skills in Python. The company offers a flexible working environment with a strong emphasis on work-life balance.

Qualifications

• Minimum three years software engineering experience.
• Experience with API-level LLM usage and prompt engineering.
• Direct client-facing experience is required.

Responsibilities

• Develop platform functionality using Python for diverse client needs.
• Design scalable solutions tailored to client requirements.
• Work with clients to gather requirements and translate them into solutions.

Skills

Strong Python programming skills

Excellent communication abilities

Strong analytical and problem-solving approach

Ability to align solutions with business goals

Tools

FastAPI

Job description

Whitespace Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

AI Solutions Engineer (Senior)

Whitespace Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

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Reporting to: Head of Solutions Engineering

About Whitespace

Whitespace leads in creating smarter, safer AI solutions for enterprises. As AI presents transformative opportunities, many companies struggle to harness its full potential.

Whitespace bridges this gap with Collective - The AI Operating System for high-assurance environments. Built for scale, trust and action - even in the most secure, complex or disconnected settings.

We're not just building AI systems. We're laying the foundation for a future where humans and machines work together like never before.

Role Summary

The successful AI Solutions Engineer will exploit, extend and enhance our AI Operating System, which leverages LLMs to solve industry-specific challenges across regulated industries, including defence, legal, finance and others.

This is a hands‑on role focused on rapidly prototyping and deploying AI‑powered solutions. Working directly with clients, you will translate their needs into scalable, production‑ready AI applications using the latest frameworks and technologies.

Responsibilities

Technical Development

• Develop platform functionality using Python, building APIs and integrations to extend capabilities for diverse client needs.
• Design and implement LLM‑powered applications and workflows using open source models such as Llama, Qwen and Gemma, as well as those online models from OpenAI, Gemini, etc.
• Build AI agents with tool/function calling, prompt engineering and appropriate guardrails using frameworks such as OpenAI AgentSDK, LangGraph or LlamaIndex.
• Implement testing and evaluation frameworks for LLM applications, covering prompt testing, output quality metrics and agent behaviour validation.
• Apply relevant AI technologies as needed, including retrieval systems (RAG, GraphRAG), knowledge graphs, vector databases or data pipelines.

Solution Design and Implementation

• Design and deliver scalable, efficient solutions tailored to client‑specific requirements whilst balancing innovation with practical constraints around compliance, performance, cost and security.
• Participate in technical discussions, diagnose complex challenges and collaborate effectively within the engineering team.

Client Engagement and Collaboration

• Work directly with clients to gather requirements and translate them into actionable AI‑powered solutions, moving rapidly from concept to working prototype.
• Communicate complex technical concepts effectively to technical and non‑technical stakeholders, including system capabilities and limitations.
• Collaborate with team members and contribute to technical knowledge sharing within the team.

Role Requirements

Work Experience

• At least three years as a software engineer on commercial platforms, with demonstrable experience building LLM‑powered applications.
• Proven experience with API‑level LLM usage, including prompt engineering and tool/function calling.
• Experience with agent frameworks (OpenAI AgentSDK, LangGraph, LlamaIndex Agents or similar).
• Experience developing APIs using FastAPI or similar frameworks and integrating with third‑party platforms.
• Direct client‑facing experience gathering requirements and delivering technical implementations.
• Experience within agile development workflows and engineering teams.

Skills & Abilities

• Strong Python (or similar) programming skills with a focus on scalable and secure solutions.
• Excellent communication abilities, translating complex technical concepts for diverse audiences.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving approach, identifying scalable and reusable solutions.
• Ability to align solutions with business goals and industry‑specific constraints.
• Self‑sufficient contributor capable of working independently and seeking support when needed.
• Collaborative team player who works effectively with colleagues across the organisation.

Nice to Have

• Open source LLMs (Llama, Qwen, Gemma, GPT OSS) and local deployment strategies.
• Frameworks and protocols such as Model Context Protocol (MCP) or Agent‑to‑Agent (A2A).
• LLM evaluation tooling (OpenAI Evals, LangSmith, custom evaluation harnesses).
• Advanced agent patterns: multi‑agent systems, supervision, delegation strategies.
• RAG, GraphRAG and knowledge graph design and implementation.
• Vector databases and similarity search systems.
• Graph databases (ArangoDB, Neo4j, Neptune) and property graph modelling.
• Data engineering: ETL pipelines, document processing, schema design for AI applications.
• Cloud platforms (GCP preferred, AWS/Azure also relevant) and containerisation (Docker).
• Observability and monitoring for LLM applications (tracing, metrics, cost tracking).
• Secure coding practices for regulated industries and sensitive data handling.
• Frontend experience (React/Next.js) for rapid prototyping of client demos.

What we offer

Work on impactful, cutting‑edge products powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Be part of an agile, close‑knit team that values creativity, quality, and continuous learning.

• A flexible working environment, with typically 2 days of hybrid working in our Belfast office, and one of the best work‑life balances you’ll find:
• A (Mon to Thurs) 4‑day week during the holidays - July, August and December
• The last Friday of every month off
• Early finish every working Friday at 3pm
• 25 days of annual leave, plus all NI bank holidays

EMI Share options in a rapidly growing scale‑up.