Senior AI Engineer

Locate a Locum; Belfast City District; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Bonus up to 10%

35 days holiday

5% matched pension

AXA Private Medical Insurance

Healthcare Cash Plan

Enhanced Sick Pay

Enhanced Parental Pay

L&D allowance

Team socials

Job summary

Locate a Locum is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to own and architect our AI ecosystem. You will build production-ready AI features across both our SaaS platform and core engines, with governance, monitoring, and high autonomy in a hybrid team.

You will lead the design of AI systems, ensure data privacy and compliance, and collaborate with the Head of Engineering to accelerate growth and reduce operational friction.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building, testing and shipping AI features into live software.
• Experience connecting AI models to documents and databases for retrieval and answers.
• Ability to read unstructured documents (PDFs, images, forms) and extract accurate data.
• Strong full-stack background with Java and TypeScript, integrating AI with frontend/backend systems.
• Experience measuring AI accuracy and building safety checks to prevent hallucinations and errors.
• Understanding of GDPR and handling sensitive data with AI best practices.

Responsibilities

• Architect, build and deploy AI features into the LAL platform to drive user engagement and value.
• Identify bottlenecks and build automated pipelines using AI and deterministic methods.
• Design, test and maintain scalable agentic workflows that integrate with core infrastructure.
• Establish evaluation frameworks, guardrails, and fallback mechanisms for non-deterministic outputs.
• Document patterns, prompts, and deployment pipelines to enable future developers.

Skills

Building AI Applications

Search & Knowledge Retrieval

Document Processing & Data Extraction

Core Software Engineering

AI Quality, Accuracy & Monitoring

Data Security & Compliance

Java

TypeScript

Tools

Java

TypeScript

Job description

AI is already part of daily life at Locate a Locum - teams across the business are experimenting, testing, and finding value. What’s missing is the architect to own it. We are looking for an entrepreneurial, high-impact Senior AI Engineer to become our first dedicated AI specialist and turn fragmented, ad-hoc workflows into a robust, unified AI ecosystem.

In this role, you will take full technical ownership: establishing governance and monitoring, professionalising our internal tools, and architecting cutting-edge, production-ready capabilities across both our customer-facing SaaS platform and core operational engines.

Working side-by-side with our Head of Engineering, you will turn our current momentum into intelligent features that accelerate growth, boost retention, and systematically eliminate operational friction. If you are looking for a role with high autonomy and the leverage of a company already eager to build with AI, then this role is for you.

Job Title: Senior AI Engineer

Employment Type: Full-Time

Work Model: Hybrid

What You'll Do

• SaaS Feature Development: Architect, build and deploy AI applications and interactive features directly into the LAL platform to drive user engagement and customer value.

• Internal Process Optimisation: Identify operational bottlenecks and build high-precision automated pipelines, using appropriate AI and deterministic methodologies.

• AI Systems Architecture & Infrastructure: Design, test and maintain scalable agentic workflows that seamlessly integrate with LAL's core infrastructure.

• Quality, Guardrails & Evaluation: Establish robust evaluation frameworks, hallucination tracking, prompt engineering standards, and fallback mechanisms to ensure high accuracy and compliance in non-deterministic model outputs.

• Technical Standards & Expansion Foundation: Document technical patterns, prompt structures, and deployment pipelines to establish a foundation that allows internal Developers or future hires to build on top of our AI architecture.

What We're Looking For

Technical Skills & Experience:

• Building AI Applications: Hands-on experience building, testing and shipping real-world AI features into live software platforms (building applications that use AI models, rather than just using AI assistants to write standard code).

• Search & Knowledge Retrieval: Practical experience connecting AI models to company documents and databases so systems can search, retrieve and answer queries using accurate internal data.

• Document Processing & Data Extraction: Proven ability to build automated tools that read unstructured documents (PDFs, images, forms) and cleanly extract accurate information which can then be integrated down-stream into our application(s).

• Core Software Engineering: Strong background in standard full-stack development using Java and TypeScript, with solid experience connecting and integrating agentic solutions with front and backend systems.

• AI Quality, Accuracy & Monitoring: Experience measuring AI accuracy, tracking usage costs, and building safety checks and fallback rules to prevent models from giving incorrect or fabricated answers.

• Data Security & Compliance: Basic understanding of data privacy laws (GDPR) and handling sensitive customer data safely, including AI related best practices, guidelines and regulations.

Required Competencies

• Self-Direction & Ownership: Ability to take broad, high-level business problems from shaping to shipped production software without the need for supervision.

• Practical Product Focus: Strong focus on commercial outcomes, balancing technical elegance with user value, and prioritising rapid delivery and ROI over experimental projects.

• Smart Problem Solving: Ability to spot technical risks early, make sensible compromises when time is tight and keep projects moving forward smoothly.

• Technical Communication & Collaboration: Strong written and verbal communication skills to articulate AI architecture choices clearly to technical leadership and explain how AI systems work in simple terms to colleagues.

Leadership & Mentorship: Willingness to establish clear coding standards, documentation and evaluation frameworks that empower internal team members to easily learn from, maintain and build on your work as the team grows.

Life at LAL

• Company: Locate a Locum (LAL) modernises and streamlines flexible staffing and management across the healthcare sector. We value practical innovation, high-quality delivery, and empowering our engineering teams to solve high-impact, real-world operational problems without standard corporate friction.

• Engineering Team Subculture & Ways of Working: We consciously avoid bloated backlogs, endless two-week sprint treadmills, and mid-cycle interruptions. Our Engineering and Product function operates under a clear, focused methodology designed for momentum and delivery.

• Fixed Time, Variable Scope : We work in focused 6-week release cycles bounded by strict time budgets. Rather than estimating endless solution timelines, we define an "appetite" for an idea and design the right solution to deliver value within that window.

• Up-Front Problem Shaping: Projects are shaped and de-risked out-of-cycle before dev work begins—establishing core user flows, technical boundaries, and strict "no-gos" so you can hit the ground running on day one.

• True Team Autonomy: During a cycle, complete trust is placed in small, cross-functional teams/pods. You will have total autonomy to execute concepts, make trade-offs, and ship vertical, working software early—without ticket-level micromanagement.

• Focus on Solved vs. Unsolved: We measure genuine progress by evaluating knowns versus unknowns using visual tracking, rather than relying on arbitrary story points or "percentage complete" metrics.

• Continual Check-Ins & Quality First: Regular touchpoints throughout the 6-week cycle allow us to validate direction and resolve risks as they appear. We emphasize high-quality delivery the first time, continually refining code and infrastructure so projects are fully complete, polished, and signed off within the cycle.

Benefits & Perks

• Competitive salary with structured annual pay review
• Performance-related bonus (up to 10% of base salary)
• 35 days holiday (inclusive of public holidays, fully flexible to take whenever suits you best)
• 5% matched pension contribution
• AXA Private Medical Insurance
• Healthcare Cash Plan (cashback support for everyday optical, dental, and therapy expenses)
• Enhanced Company Sick Pay
• Enhanced Parental Pay
• Annual personal L&D allowance for courses, conferences and certifications
• Quarterly team socials and events

Application & Interview Process

We want our interview process to be transparent, two-way, and respectful of your time. Here is what to expect:

• Initial Screen (30 mins | Video Call) An introductory conversation with our Recruitment Team to explore your background, share more about LAL's mission, and answer your initial questions
• Deep-Dive Interview (45 mins | Video Call) A conversation with our Head of Engineering and Head of People to dig into your technical background, your approach to problem-solving, and mutual culture fit.
• Practical Task & Stakeholder Session (45 - 60 mins | Video Call / On-Site) A practical, scenario-based session where you'll walk through a task relevant to the role. You'll present your approach to key cross-functional stakeholders, followed by an open Q&A.