Machine Learning Engineer

Wave Talent; Sheffield; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading AI solutions provider in the UK is seeking a Machine Learning Engineer to join their early-stage team. In this role, you will enhance LLM-powered document processing workflows and manage production-level Python code. The ideal candidate has hands-on experience with LLM systems and Docker, embraces a builder mindset, and communicates effectively. Competitive salary of £80-90k per year with equity options. Flexible working arrangements possible.

Benefits

Equity options

Flexible remote working

Qualifications

• Extensive experience with production-level Python code.
• Hands-on experience with LLM-based systems.
• Comfortable with Docker in real environments.

Responsibilities

• Join an early-stage AI company as an ML engineer.
• Improve and extend LLM-powered document processing workflows.
• Design and build evaluation datasets for systematic experiments.
• Harden and scale a containerized ML pipeline.

Skills

Python

Understanding of LLM-based systems

Docker

Clear communication

Tools

Go

Temporal

Job description

Overview

An early-stage UK AI company is building software that removes friction from complex logistics workflows by automating document processing and decision-making. Their product is already live with customers, and the focus now is on moving faster, shipping weekly, and compounding product quality through better ML systems.

The role

• You’ll join as one of the first ML engineers in a six-person team, working very close to the product and real customer problems. This is a production-first role, not research-led.
• You’ll improve and extend LLM-powered document processing and agent workflows that are already in use.
• You’ll design and build evaluation datasets, run systematic experiments on prompts, models and architectures, and turn results into shipped improvements.
• You’ll help harden and scale a containerised ML pipeline, and keep a close eye on new model releases to identify practical gains the team can ship quickly.
• Ownership is end-to-end, from idea to production.

What you’ll bring

• You’ve written a lot of Python that runs in production and you’re comfortable owning it.
• You’ve worked hands-on with LLM-based systems, including prompting, evaluation and iteration, and you care about measuring whether things are actually getting better.
• You’re confident with Docker and running containerised services in real environments.
• Experience with Go, workflow orchestration tools like Temporal, or building structured evaluation datasets is useful but not essential.
• More important is a builder mindset: you’ve shipped things end-to-end, you’re comfortable working independently, and you follow through on what you commit to.
• Clear communication and comfort operating in a high-bar, outcome-driven environment really matter here.

What’s on offer

• Base salary of £80–90k depending on experience.
• Equity of around 0.1–0.2% in options, with scope for accelerated vesting.
• A genuinely small, senior team with a weekly shipping cadence and direct exposure to customers. UK-based today, with flexibility on remote working for the right person and openness to future New York expansion.

Apply to find out more!