> Markdown version of [/jobs/ext/2790890-senior-ai-engineer](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/ext/2790890-senior-ai-engineer). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Senior AI Engineer - **Company:** Deerfoot Recruitment Solutions Limited - **Location:** Oxford, UK - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** £182,000.0 - £234,000.0 - **Contract:** Temporary contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Amazon Web Services, Cloud Computing, Encodings, Python (Programming Language), Language Modeling, Open Source Technology, OpenShift, Open Web Application Security, Raw Data, Software Deployment, Software Engineering, Large Language Models, Multi-Agent Systems, Software Security, Indexer, Git, Kubernetes, Machine Learning Operations, Data Pipelines, Docker - **Published:** September 8, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.careerboard.com/pt/en/find-jobs-in-United-Kingdom/-40994DA60058E94C76/ ## About the Role * Robust software engineering, including developing LLM-powered or agentic systems, and a track record operating at senior/lead level * Strong engineering fundamentals - code that's clean, tested and built to last, not just prototypes that work once * Commercial track record building and owning multi-agent or agentic AI systems in live production settings, as an engineer rather than an integrator * Strong Python skills, comfortable working with LangGraph, LangChain, Haystack or similar, and equally comfortable dropping below the framework when that's the right call * Real-world experience deploying AI/ML systems into production, beyond notebooks and proof-of-concepts * Confidence across inference performance, data pipeline design, state/memory handling, and tool or function calling * Experience building retrieval and search over very large, multi-modal datasets (multi-terabyte scale, spanning text, imagery, telemetry and sensor feeds), including indexing and embedding at scale * Comfortable with Docker, Git and cloud infrastructure, ideally AWS * Understanding of secure deployment approaches: air-gapped, on-premises or sovereign cloud Nice to Have * Multimodal reasoning and/or edge or offline AI deployment experience * Kubernetes experience (EKS or OpenShift) * MLOps background: evaluation, monitoring, reproducibility * Observability for agentic systems, covering drift, agent behaviour and performance * amiliarity with agent-to-agent orchestration protocols or the Model Context Protocol (MCP) * Awareness of secure-by-design frameworks (ISO 27001, NIST, OWASP) * Background in defence, national security or other regulated sectors * Open-source AI/ML contributions ## Description Our client is a rapidly scaling UK deep-tech company delivering advanced AI capability into some of the most consequence-heavy environments there are: defence and national security, critical national infrastructure, and enterprise clients whose decisions carry real weight. They're hiring two Senior Applied AI Engineers to take ownership of the agentic AI systems underpinning their platform, on a contract basis, with genuine influence over how those systems are architected and delivered. This role suits an engineer who designs and ships systems rather than assembling pre-built components - someone who cares more about how a system performs once it's live and under pressure than how impressive it looks in a demo. What You'll Be Doing * Architecting and building multi-agent AI systems end-to-end, combining frameworks such as LangGraph or Haystack where they add value with bespoke orchestration, state management and tool-calling logic where a framework won't cut it * Writing production-grade code with reliability, latency and graceful failure handling designed in from the start rather than bolted on afterwards * Embedding LLMs and vision-language models into live reasoning, search, summarisation and task-execution workflows, backed by solid retrieval, memory and guardrail design * Deploying across cloud, on-premises and fully offline/air-gapped settings, adapting your approach to each environment's security and connectivity constraints * Taking end-to-end ownership of production pipelines, from raw data ingestion through to live inference * Building the monitoring, evaluation and guardrail tooling that shows how a system is actually performing in the field * Setting technical standards for agentic AI within the team, establishing the patterns other engineers follow and leaving clear documentation behind ## Related Videos - [On a Secret Mission: Developing AI Agents](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1510-on-a-secret-mission-developing-ai-agents) - [How a Small Team Shrank a Microsoft Monorepo by 94%](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1236-how-a-small-team-shrank-a-microsoft-monorepo-by-94) - [Docker Compose: Rediscovered](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1978-docker-compose-rediscovered) - [Optimizing Discovery: PostgreSQL's Role in Transforming GetYourGuide's Search](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1647-optimizing-discovery-postgresql-s-role-in-transforming-getyourguide-s-search) - [Azure AI Foundry for Developers: Open Tools, Scalable Agents, Real Impact](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1541-azure-ai-foundry-for-developers-open-tools-scalable-agents-real-impact) - [Git for Code Reviews](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/429-git-for-code-reviews) ## Related Articles - [How to Become an AI Engineer](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/331-how-to-become-an-ai-engineer) - [MLOps And AI Driven Development](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/82-mlops-and-ai-driven-development) - [Graph and AI Trends 2026: Why Is AI Running but Not Yet Delivering?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/680-graph-and-ai-trends-2026-why-is-ai-running-but-not-yet-delivering) - [From Prototype to Production: Build AI Agents with This Free 4-Course Learning Path](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/655-from-prototype-to-production-build-ai-agents-with-this-free-4-course-learning-path) - [What Are Large Language Models?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/304-what-are-large-language-models) - [Dev Digest 137 - AI'm not sure about this](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/485-dev-digest-137-ai-m-not-sure-about-this)