Principal Data Scientist - AI

Opus 2; London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in legal software is seeking a Principal Data Scientist to spearhead AI systems design, focusing on intelligent, production-ready solutions. This role involves collaborating with product and engineering teams to enhance AI features delivering real value to customers, requiring strong AI and software skills.

Benefits

Contributory pension plan

26 days annual holidays

Health Insurance

Loyalty Share Scheme

Enhanced Maternity and Paternity

Employee Assistance Programme

Electric Vehicle Salary Sacrifice

Cycle to Work Scheme

Calm and Mindfulness sessions

A day of leave to volunteer for charity

Qualifications

• 5+ years in applied AI or machine learning systems.
• Experience with Claude or Amazon Bedrock.
• Proficiency in Python.

Responsibilities

• Lead design of AI systems for complex tasks.
• Implement LLM-powered automation systems.
• Own lifecycle of AI components from planning to deployment.

Skills

AI Systems Design

Software Engineering

MLOps

Prompt Design

Education

5+ years experience in applied AI or data science roles

Proficiency in Python

Tools

Amazon Bedrock

Claude

Job description

23 hours ago Be among the first 25 applicants

This range is provided by Opus 2. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

Base pay range

We're looking for a Principal Data Scientist to lead the design of AI systems that can support complex, multi-step tasks, use tools, adapt to context, and make intelligent decisions. You'll work closely with product and engineering to architect LLM-powered features that are robust, useful, and production-ready not just impressive demos. This role is ideal for someone who not only understands data and AI deeply but also brings strong software engineering instincts. Someone who can design intelligent systems that operate reliably and scalably within a complex product environment.

What You'll Be Doing

• You will explore and implement RAG or Graph RAG approaches to improve retrieval quality and reasoning in LLM workflows, including graph construction, entity linking, and hybrid scoring strategies.
• Design and implement LLM-powered systems that support multi-step task automation, tool use, and context-aware reasoning within the product.
• Contribute to prompt design and evaluate prompts results
• Design and implement MLOps pipelines with best practises in mind
• Prototype, evaluate, and ship AI features using platforms like Claude or Amazon Bedrock with a focus on production readiness, not just experimentation.
• Develop evaluation frameworks for testing model output quality, reliability, and alignment with user goals (e.g., hallucination detection, prompt regression, safety scoring).
• Work closely with engineers and designers to embed AI capabilities into real user workflows, ensuring that technical architecture supports meaningful product outcomes.
• Own the full lifecycle of AI components from evaluation frameworks, planning and modeling to testing, deployment, and continuous improvement.
• Contribute to our AI strategy and roadmap, helping shape how we scale LLM usage responsibly across the platform. You bridge product and engineering by embedding AI into user-facing features, not just prototypes.
• Collaborate closely with Principal Engineer to align AI workflows, system prompts, and model interaction layers
  
  
  

What excites us?

We've moved past experimentation. We have live AI features and a strong pipeline of customer's excited to get access to more improved ai powered workflows. Our focus is on delivering real, valuable AI-powered features to customers and doing it responsibly. You'll be part of a team that owns the entire lifecycle of these systems: planning, building, testing, deploying, and evolving them as part of our core product.

Requirements

What we're looking for in you

• You're a practical AI builder. Not just a theorist. You think in terms of customer value, vs. research or academic novelty.
• You've worked with Claude and/or Amazon Bedrock (or similar LLM platforms) and understand prompt design, model behavior tuning, and output evaluation.
• You're comfortable writing code, reviewing PR's, and deliver a reliable, explainable, production-ready product.
• Are excited about MLOps and brings experience in implementing MLOps best practices.
• You're curious about how people interact with AI and want to build systems they can trust and understand
  
  
  

Qualifications

• Experience fine tuning models.
• Ability to reason about multi-hop question answering, graph traversal, and integrating structured retrieval with LLM prompts.
• Performance over time.
• 5+ years experience in applied AI, machine learning systems, or data science roles with production responsibility.
• Proficiency in Python, with experience building and maintaining AI systems, not just analyses.
• Experience working in Java or TypeScript environments beneficial.
• Experience with Claude, OpenAI, Bedrock is nice to have or experience with similar LLM platforms required.
• Familiarity with RAG, Graph-based retrieval, prompt design, and multi-hop reasoning.
• Experience deploying LLM-powered features into production environments.
• Bonus: experience in vector stores, agent orchestration, or legaltech domain knowledge
  
  
  

Benefits

Working for Opus 2

Opus 2 is a global leader in legal software and services, trusted partner of the world's leading legal teams. All our achievements are underpinned by our unique culture where our people are our most valuable asset. Working at Opus 2, you'll receive:

• Contributory pension plan
• 26 days annual holidays, hybrid working, and length of service entitlement
• Health Insurance
• Loyalty Share Scheme
• Enhanced Maternity and Paternity
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Electric Vehicle Salary Sacrifice
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Calm and Mindfulness sessions
• A day of leave to volunteer for charity or dependent cover
• Accessible and modern office space and regular company social events

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Information Technology

• Industries

  IT Services and IT Consulting

Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at Opus 2 by 2x

Get notified about new Data Scientist jobs in London, England, United Kingdom.

London, England, United Kingdom 3 weeks ago

Associate Data Scientist, Growth Analytics

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

City Of London, England, United Kingdom £70,000.00-£75,000.00 1 day ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 day ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

London, England, United Kingdom 2 weeks ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

Data Scientist, Marketing Insights and Analytics

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

London, England, United Kingdom 2 weeks ago

London Area, United Kingdom £30,000.00-£50,000.00 4 hours ago

Associate (Data Scientist) - London, Wroclaw

Harrow, England, United Kingdom 4 hours ago

London, England, United Kingdom 2 months ago

Data Scientist – Data Science Analytics and Enablement (DSAE)

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

Greater London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

London, England, United Kingdom 3 weeks ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 month ago

London, England, United Kingdom 2 weeks ago

Data Scientist – Experimentation & Measurement

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

London, England, United Kingdom 5 days ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 week ago

London, England, United Kingdom 1 month ago

London, England, United Kingdom 3 hours ago

Data Scientist, Internship, United Kingdom - BCG X

London, England, United Kingdom 2 weeks ago

We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.