AI Engineer

AI Engineer (Permanent) Must be a British Citizen due to the nature of the company and work required Salary: £40,000-45,000 per annum Employment type: Permanent Working pattern: On-site

Our client, a growing maritime technology and defence business, is seeking an AI Engineer to help design, develop and deploy secure AI capabilities across the organisation. This role will focus on practical AI adoption across Engineering, Production, Manufacturing, IT & Security and wider corporate functions improving productivity, decision-making, access to information and operational efficiency.

The role

• Design, prototype, deploy and support secure AI applications, assistants, agents, knowledge systems and workflow automations using approved Microsoft, cloud-hosted and local platforms
• Develop retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), semantic search and knowledge-management solutions, connecting AI safely to approved systems, documents, databases and APIs
• Design, deploy and govern Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, clients and tools to securely connect AI applications to approved business systems and data
• Implement safeguards: authentication, least-privilege permissions, input validation, audit logging and human approval for sensitive actions
• Evaluate AI models, platforms, suppliers and use cases for accuracy, security, privacy, data residency, performance, cost and long-term supportability
• Help define and maintain AI governance, risk assessments and technical standards
• Apply secure-by-design controls including data classification, encryption, secrets management, role-based access, and separation of dev/test/prod environments
• Protect against AI-related risks (data leakage, prompt injection, malicious content, insecure outputs, unsafe tool use, excessive agent permissions)
• Monitor AI services for unusual activity, failures and unexpected behaviour
• Support and improve relevant business systems where needed to enable AI adoption and operational improvement
• Deploy/configure/manage secure AI applications and supporting services across Linux systems, containers and virtual machines, including monitoring, patching, backup and recovery

What we're looking for

• Practical experience designing, developing, deploying or supporting AI-enabled applications, integrations and workflow automations
• Working knowledge of LLMs, RAG, semantic search, AI agents and Model Context Protocol
• Experience deploying and operating applications across Linux systems, containers and virtual machines
• Experience of monitoring, patching, backup and recovery within application environments
• Experience working with APIs, structured data, system integrations, authentication and role-based access control
• Familiarity with source control and automation/scripting
• Understanding of secure development, AI governance, information security, data protection, auditability and responsible AI principles
• Strong analytical/troubleshooting skills with clear communication and documentation

Benefits

• 25 days holiday per year, plus paid bank holidays
• Additional annual leave after 2 years' service (up to 5 extra days)
• Holiday buy/sell (up to 5 days per calendar year)
• Flexi working (core hours 10:00-15:00, subject to departmental requirements)
• Private Medical Insurance (optional family cover)
• Pension scheme (5% employer contribution)
• Life assurance (3x salary)
• Group Income Protection
• Health Care Cash Plan
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Electric Car Scheme
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Professional membership reimbursement