Lead AI Machine Learning Engineer

Stelfox IT Recruitment; Dublin; Hybrid; EUR 148,000 - 203,000; Full time

Job summary

Stelfox IT Recruitment is seeking a Lead AI Machine Learning Engineer for a Dublin-based, hybrid daily rate contract. The role focuses on leading the design and delivery of enterprise AI solutions using generative AI, LLMs, and RAG, with emphasis on scalable architectures and responsible AI.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with Data Science, MLOps and API teams, and ensure robust testing, governance and deployment standards across enterprise applications.

Qualifications

• 7+ years hands-on AI/ML experience.
• Strong production experience with Generative AI and LLM‑based apps.
• Experience designing RAG architectures and AI agents/workflows.
• Proficiency with Python; JavaScript/TypeScript advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and implementation of enterprise AI solutions using LLMs, RAG and agentic AI.
• Design scalable AI architectures incorporating vector databases, APIs and modern AI frameworks.
• Build sophisticated RAG solutions with retrieval, context management and response generation.
• Develop AI agents and multi-step workflows capable of reasoning and tool use.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical direction across internal and third-party AI initiatives.

Skills

AI/ML expertise

Python

Leadership

Stakeholder comms

Prompt engineering

LLM evaluation

Context management

Model optimization

Guardrails

Cloud AWS

Education

Bachelor's in CS/AI

Master's in CS/AI

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

LangChain

LangGraph

LlamaIndex

Semantic Kernel

Pinecone

Weaviate

Qdrant

MLOps

Job description

Lead AI Machine Learning Engineer – Daily Rate Contract Role Dublin (Hybrid Working Model)

This is an excellent opportunity for a Lead-Senior AI Machine Learning professional with strong hands‑on experience across Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) and Agentic AI who enjoys combining technical leadership with practical solution delivery.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the architecture and implementation of enterprise AI solutions using LLMs, RAG and agentic AI.
• Design scalable AI architectures incorporating vector databases, APIs and modern AI frameworks.
• Build sophisticated RAG solutions, including retrieval, context management and response generation.
• Develop AI agents and multi‑step workflows capable of reasoning and tool use.
• Design LLM‑powered applications for intelligent automation, document processing and conversational AI.
• Lead prompt engineering, model evaluation, fine‑tuning and optimisation approaches.
• Establish AI development standards covering testing, guardrails, safety, monitoring and responsible AI.
• Integrate AI capabilities into existing enterprise applications and business‑critical workflows.
• Work closely with Data Science, MLOps, API, UI and engineering teams.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical direction across internal and third‑party AI initiatives.

Required Experience:

• 7+ years' hands‑on AI/ML experience.
• Strong production experience developing Generative AI and LLM‑based applications.
• Proven experience designing and implementing RAG architectures.
• Hands‑on experience building Agentic AI / AI Agent workflows.
• Experience with frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex or Semantic Kernel.
• Strong Python development skills.
• Experience with JavaScript/TypeScript is advantageous.
• Experience with vector databases such as Pinecone, Weaviate or Qdrant.
• Strong understanding of prompt engineering, context management and LLM evaluation.
• Knowledge of fine‑tuning, model optimisation and quantisation.
• Experience integrating AI into enterprise applications, APIs and microservices.
• Cloud experience, ideally AWS.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes and MLOps practices.
• Understanding of AI observability, monitoring, governance and guardrails.
• Strong technical leadership and stakeholder communication skills.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence or a related discipline.
• Relevant AI/ML certifications are beneficial.
• Previous experience leading enterprise‑scale AI implementation programmes would be highly desirable

Stelfox is fully compliant with GDPR regulations and you can read more in our privacy policy here: https://www.stelfox.com/privacy-policy-gdpr/.

Your shared data will not be disclosed or transferred to a third party data controller or data processor located outside the EEA unless we have obtained your express consent.

We look forward to working with you.