Contract Lead Machine Learning Engineer

Be-IT; Glasgow; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Be-IT is seeking a senior ML architect to own end-to-end ML decisions and shape production capability from the ground up.

You will design data pipelines, training workflows, serving and monitoring, establish governance, all inside a closed perimeter. The role is remote with 1–2 days on-site per month in Scotland, outside IR35, long-term engagement.

Qualifications

• Senior-level ownership of ML decisions with no ML lead above you.
• Experience taking a model from proposal to production and measuring business impact.
• Ability to build a capability from nothing when no scaffolding exists.

Responsibilities

• Define and build the ML platform, data pipeline, and training workflow.
• Oversee serving, monitoring, and governance standards for all models.
• Work within a closed perimeter with no external egress, ensuring security and IP protection.

Skills

ML leadership

Production ML

Model deployment

Data pipelines

Job description

This business has never run machine learning in production. This is the role that changes that, and it starts on the single highest-value optimisation problem they have.

It's a physical manufacturing process where getting the settings right first time, instead of running it again, saves material, energy and time at very large scale. Today that judgement sits with a handful of specialists. You'd build the ML capability that supports and extends it, from data pipeline and training workflow through to serving, monitoring and the standards every model that follows will be held to.

You’ll begin with no ML platform, no playbook, no team to slot into. You define all of it. The data involved is also the company's most sensitive IP, so everything runs inside a closed perimeter with no external egress, and that constraint shapes how you build from day one.

What this needs:

• You're senior enough to be the last word on ML decisions here, because there's no ML lead above you to escape to and the calls are yours to make.
• You've taken a model from proposal to production and measured the business impact, so you'll understand why this starts with offline validation, then shadow mode, then a controlled live trial, and why research-only experience won't carry it.
• You've built a capability from nothing before, because a defined problem with no existing scaffolding either energises you or unsettles you, and this role needs the former.

Remote, with 1-2 days a month on-site in Scotland. Outside IR35, 12+ months project.