Senior AI Engineer- London

About The Role FDM is a global business and technology consultancy seeking a Senior AI Developer to work for our client within the Higher Education sector. This is initially a 3-month contract with very good prospects to extend and will be a hybrid role based in London.

Our client is looking for a hands-on Senior AI Developer to help establish and grow practical AI capability across its ICT function. The role will focus on turning agreed use cases into working solutions that demonstrate clear value quickly, while creating a strong foundation for further investment and delivery.

You will work closely with Enterprise Architecture, the AI Product Owner and teams across cyber security, data, integrations, infrastructure and networking. The initial focus will be on smaller, achievable use cases, including AI assistants that can review technical designs and documentation, identify missing information, assess completeness and check alignment with organisational security, networking and infrastructure standards.

This is primarily a development role rather than a research, strategy or people-management position. You will be expected to take ownership of delivery, work independently, engage proactively with stakeholders and build solutions within existing cloud patterns, guardrails and governance standards.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, test and deploy practical AI-powered applications, assistants and workflow automations.

Build Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions that use organisational documentation, standards and knowledge sources.

Develop an initial assistant that can review cloud infrastructure designs, prompt users for missing configuration information, measure document completeness and check alignment with agreed standards.

Translate prioritised use cases into working proofs of concept and production-ready solutions that demonstrate measurable value.

Use prompt engineering and model configuration techniques to improve accuracy, relevance, consistency and user experience.

Integrate Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI services with existing cloud platforms, enterprise systems, APIs and workflows.

Work closely with Enterprise Architecture and the AI Product Owner to understand requirements, refine use cases and agree achievable outcomes.

Collaborate across cyber security, data, integrations, infrastructure and networking to secure the services, access and technical resources required for delivery.

Ensure solutions follow existing security, data, networking, infrastructure, governance and responsible AI standards.

Evaluate appropriate models, tools and approaches for each use case, balancing quality, cost, maintainability and delivery speed.

Apply modern software engineering practices, including version control, testing, code review, CI/CD, monitoring and documentation.

Contribute reusable development patterns, guidance and good practice as the client's AI capability matures.

Proactively identify delivery risks, ask the right questions and take ownership from concept through to implementation and handover.

Support the identification and shaping of future AI opportunities once the first use cases have demonstrated value.

Desirable skills

Azure AI Foundry and Azure Machine Learning.

MLOps practices and tools such as MLflow.

Containerisation and orchestration using Docker and Kubernetes.

Experience developing copilots, AI agents or multi-step AI workflows.

Experience working with enterprise architecture, cloud design, infrastructure or technical standards.

Knowledge of responsible AI, security controls, guardrails and model risk management.

Experience working in Higher Education, the public sector or another large and complex organisation.

Experience helping a new AI capability move from proof of concept into repeatable delivery.