Senior AI Engineer

£38,285 to £45,738 per annum (for exceptional performers, there is scope for further progression up to £52,605 per annum).

Onsite
This role will be based on site, primarily in the named location.

We have one simple promise - to make a positive impact. Through our ground-breaking research, teaching excellence and commitment to sustainable living, we are changing lives for the better.

The University of Derby is a modern university with a modern outlook. Everything we do is driven by delivering excellence and opportunities for our students, our staff and our region.

We have some of the best university facilities in the UK and achieve outstanding results for our teaching and research and have been awarded Gold in the prestigious Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023 - making it one of the top universities in the country recognised for its outstanding student experience and student outcomes.

Financially strong and seriously ambitious we offer our employees an inclusive culture that centres itself around staff wellbeing, where you can be confident you will receive all the help and encouragement you need to build a rewarding career with lots of opportunities to enhance your skills.

Digital Solutions & Services are responsible for providing the digital platform to enable the best possible service to staff, students and stakeholders across the University and beyond. We take a collaborative approach to developing strategic goals to provide a diverse range of information technology and business services designed to support learning, teaching and research at the University of Derby.

We are responsible for ensuring that the University's IT capability is fit for purpose, future focused and able to protect, support and enhance the full breadth of services that will be delivered either on campus or digitally online with contributions across the department. We aim to assist students, teaching staff, support departments and collaborative partners to ensure we are making an impact on the University's current and future digital landscape.

The Cloud Infrastructure and Identity team are a small team who are responsible for the development and running of a modern cloud (azure) infrastructure, it's security and operations and the identity management across the university.

As the Senior AI Engineer, you will be responsible for the design, development, and operational support of cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence solutions, primarily on the Microsoft technology stack. This role sits at the intersection of data science and software engineering, requiring a candidate who can not only build sophisticated models but also ensure they are scalable, ethical, and integrated seamlessly into our digital ecosystem.

You will lead the transition from experimental "Proof of Concepts" to robust, production-ready AI services, focusing on enhancing the experience of students and staff through automation, predictive analytics, and Generative AI.

The role has a strong focus on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Fabric, Azure AI, Azure OpenAI, and Microsoft Copilot technologies. The post holder will enable secure, scalable, and responsible use of AI across teaching, research, and professional services, embedding AI capabilities into digital platforms and business processes.

This post is a 1 year secondment opportunity to help deliver game changing solutions primarily but not solely around the applicant journey, the role will be key in showing how AI can help drive efficiency and automation and allowing staff to add real value add interactions.

To be successful in this role; you will have experience of implementing innovative AI based solutions and have a keen desire to take these to an enterprise ready position, you will have a drive to design, build, and operate AI solutions using Microsoft Azure, Azure AI Studio, Azure OpenAI, and Microsoft Fabric, or appropriate approved tooling.

The role will be focused around an on-going project with opportunities to include quick wins across other areas of the university.

The candidate will have a range of development and AI skills such as (see job description for full role details)

• Significant experience delivering AI or data solutions on Microsoft Azure.
• Experience designing and deploying Microsoft Copilot or Copilot Studio solutions.
• Strong experience of Python and/or other relevant languages used for AI and data engineering.
• Experience of Data technologies (structured and unstructured data, data quality, governance).
• Solid understanding of Generative AI, prompt engineering, and Copilot extensibility.
• Security, privacy, and responsible AI principles.
• Work with the Team Leader to achieve the strategic objectives of the team specifically the design, development, and deployment of production-grade AI/ML models.
• Design, build, and operate AI solutions using Microsoft Azure, Azure AI Studio, Azure OpenAI, and Microsoft Fabric, or appropriate approved tooling.
• Develop and support Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Studio solutions, including custom copilots, plugins, and integrations.
• Working with the Data Services team, implement data and analytics solutions using Microsoft Fabric components such as OneLake, Lakehouse, and semantic models. Ensuring Data Integrity and Governance processes are in place, ensuring training datasets are representative, cleaned, and compliant with privacy regulations.
• Identifying existing manual data processes for development of automated feature engineering or document handover of model endpoints to the software development team.
• Responsible for assisting with key projects across the department, such as integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) or Computer Vision into existing business logic.
• Responsible for ensuring monitoring of all AI services, including predictive analytics on model drift, bias detection, and accuracy metrics, reporting these to the management team.
• Maintain security and ethics of complex AI systems through implementing "Privacy-by-Design," understanding the principles of AI safety, and staying updated on the evolving threat landscape (e.g., prompt injection or adversarial attacks).
• Establish and maintain MLOps and AI lifecycle practices using Azure Machine Learning, DevOps pipelines, and monitoring tools.
• Ensure AI solutions meet security, compliance, and responsible AI standards, including data protection, model governance, and risk management.
• Act as a senior technical escalation point for AI related incidents, problems, and complex changes.
• Collaborate with infrastructure and identity teams to ensure secure integration with Entra ID, Microsoft 365, and Azure services.
• Produce and maintain technical standards, architecture patterns, and documentation for Microsoft based AI platforms.
• Horizon scan Microsoft AI and data platform roadmaps and assess opportunities for adoption within the University.
• Ensure the AI model portfolio is well-managed, accurate, and provides a seamless user experience through high-quality inference and low latency.
• Service ownership / model delivery - co-developing AI roadmaps, designing neural architectures, and managing the end-to-end ML Lifecycle (from data ingestion to model decay monitoring).
• Works with stakeholders to ensure AI solutions solve real-world student and staff challenges across the estate.
• Responsible for technical documentation, including model cards, architecture diagrams, training hyper-parameters, and explanation of AI ethical standards.
• Responsible for setting standards for coding practices, version control (Git), and experimentation frameworks (e.g., MLflow, Weights & Biases).
• BSc in Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, or equivalent professional experience.

Experience

• Significant experience delivering AI or data solutions on Microsoft Azure.
• Hands on experience with Azure AI, Azure OpenAI, Azure Machine Learning, or Microsoft Fabric.
• Experience designing and deploying Microsoft Copilot or Copilot Studio solutions.
• Strong experience of Python and/or other relevant languages used for AI and data engineering.
• Experience integrating AI services with existing applications and platforms via APIs.
• Demonstrable experience of LLMs and experience fine-tuning models
• Experience operating production services and supporting incident, problem, and change management.
• Understanding of the full solution lifecycle from concept through to live operation and continuous improvement.
• Experience of Data technologies (structured and unstructured data, data quality, governance).

Skills, knowledge & abilities

• Solid understanding of Microsoft Azure platform architecture and services.
• Proven knowledge of data engineering, and analytics concepts.
• Solid understanding of Generative AI, prompt engineering, and Copilot extensibility.
• Automation skills, infrastructure as code e.g. DevOps / MLOps practices using Git, CI/CD, and monitoring.
• Understanding of Security, privacy, and responsible AI principles.
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills, with the ability to explain complex AI concepts to non specialists.
• Machine learning concepts (supervised/unsupervised learning, model evaluation, bias, and drift).
• Generative AI concepts, prompt engineering, and safe/appropriate usage patterns.
• Passion for innovation, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing.

Business requirements

• Work as part of an on call out of hours rota
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