Contract AI Engineer (Applied/Production AI)

Location: Reading/Hybrid
Contract: Initial 3-6 months (extension likely)
Start: ASAP

We're supporting a technology-driven organisation that is moving from AI experimentation into real production use cases. They're looking for a hands-on AI Engineer to design, build and deploy AI solutions that are secure, scalable and genuinely used by the business.

This is a delivery-focused role - ideal for someone who enjoys turning AI ideas into working systems, not just proofs of concept.

• Design and build production-ready AI solutions, with a strong focus on reliability and scalability

• Develop and deploy GenAI/LLM-based applications (eg copilots, internal tools, automation)

• Build and maintain AI services, APIs and integrations with existing platforms

• Implement data pipelines, embeddings, vector search and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) patterns

• Work closely with engineering, product and business stakeholders to shape AI use cases

• Ensure solutions meet security, governance and performance requirements

• Contribute to best practice around AI engineering, MLOps and deployment patterns

• Proven experience as an AI Engineer/ML Engineer delivering AI into production

• Strong Python development skills

• Hands-on experience with LLMs (commercial and/or open-source)

• Experience building APIs and services around AI models

• Cloud experience (AWS, Azure or GCP)

• Familiarity with vector databases, embeddings and modern AI architectures

• Comfortable working in agile, fast-moving delivery environments

• Experience with GenAI use cases (RAG, agents, copilots, document automation)

• Exposure to MLOps, CI/CD and monitoring of AI systems

• Experience in regulated or enterprise environments

• Consulting or client-facing delivery experience

• Focus on real AI delivery, not slideware or endless PoCs

• Opportunity to shape how AI is engineered and deployed

• Strong likelihood of extension based on delivery

• Hybrid working with a Reading base