Manchester Digital
AI/ML LLM Engineer 3 Month Contract
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Job Description
Pay:
£500/month inclusive of VAT (£1,500 total for initial term)
Contract:
Self-employed independent contractor, fixed-term (IR35 to be assessed)
Term:
3 months initially, with possible extension by mutual written agreement
Location:
Remote (UK), occasional Manchester attendance
Working pattern:
Self-directed hours, daily standup 12:00 GMT/BST Mon–Fri
Tools:
Jira, GitLab, Confluence
Payment:
Weekly worksheet submitted Friday
- Reviewed Monday
- Invoice paid within 7 days of acceptance
What is Ladybird?
A Manchester healthtech startup. Small team. Moving fast. Building inCall — an AI receptionist for NHS GP practices. Project-based engagement with option to extend.
What is this role?
Hands-on AI and LLM engineering. You will integrate OpenAI as an interim model from day one, then design, build, fine-tune, and deploy a LLaMA 3 8B model from scratch — replacing OpenAI in the live pipeline by end of Month 3. Two tracks running simultaneously.
Requirement, read this first
You must have production experience fine-tuning and deploying large language models - not just calling APIs.
Track A Day one
OpenAI GPT integrated into the live 3CX call pipeline via AWS Transcribe and ElevenLabs so the full voice flow is testable immediately.
Track B Months 1 to 3
LLaMA 3 8B fine-tuned on 10,000+ synthetic NHS GP call examples using LoRA on SageMaker. Deployed to EC2 g4dn.xlarge. Replaces OpenAI by end of Month 3.
If you have never fine-tuned a model and deployed it to a production inference endpoint, this role is not for you.
What You Will Build
- ✔ OpenAI GPT integrated into live call pipeline from day one
- ✔ AWS Transcribe (en-GB) with custom NHS GP vocabulary
- ✔ ElevenLabs TTS for voice responses
- ✔ 10,000+ synthetic NHS GP call training dataset
- ✔ LLaMA 3 8B fine-tuned via LoRA on SageMaker
- ✔ SageMaker inference endpoint — minimum 70% accuracy on held-out test set
- ✔ NHS PDS FHIR API integrated for patient context (Month 3)
- ✔ LLaMA replaces OpenAI in live pipeline (Month 3)
- ✔ Safety and fallback layer implemented and documented
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3-month delivery plan
Month 1:
- OpenAI integrated into live pipeline.
- Full voice flow demonstrated.
- Synthetic dataset design approved.
- 1,000+ example outlines complete.
Month 2:
- LLaMA 3 8B fine-tuned on 10,000+ examples.
- SageMaker endpoint live.
- Minimum 70% accuracy on 100-example held-out test set accepted in writing.
Month 3:
- NHS PDS FHIR integrated.
- LLaMA replaces OpenAI in live pipeline.
- Full POC demo.
- All eight NHS GP call scenario types demonstrated.
- Safety layer confirmed.
You must have
- Production LLM fine-tuning, LoRA, QLoRA, or equivalent
- AWS SageMaker, training jobs, endpoint deployment, evaluation
- Synthetic data generation for model training
- Understanding of NHS or healthcare AI safety constraints
- Ability to enforce no real patient data in training architecturally
- AWS Transcribe and ElevenLabs or equivalent STT/TTS
- OpenAI API integration
- Ability to evaluate model output for production readiness
Useful But Not Essential
- NHS FHIR API
- LangChain
- RLHF
- DPO
- SageMaker Ground Truth
- Hugging Face
- DCB0129 awareness
Not suitable if
- You have only called LLM APIs rather than fine-tuned and deployed models
- You cannot architect a patient data firewall structurally — not just as a policy
- You are not comfortable owning model evaluation and sign-off independently
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The opportunity
inCall is Stage 1 of a four-stage NHS AI telephony platform. The AI Engineer who builds the LLaMA model in Stage 1 is strongly positioned to lead AI development across Stages 2–4 as the model evolves toward clinical routing and autonomous call handling.
How To Apply
3 Stages
- Complete Form: https://ladybirdltd.jp.larksuite.com/share/base/form/shrjpwYz1RbzWxvm4rVRRlkYngf
- Video: 60–120 second intro video. 3 questions, full brief provided
- Group interview: 90 minutes via Google Meet
You will hear back within 48 hours at every stage either way.
Application Question(s)
- This is a fixed-term independent contractor engagement lasting three calendar months, with the possibility of extension by mutual written agreement only. Are you aware of and comfortable with this?
- The fee for this engagement is £500 per calendar month inclusive of VAT, totalling £1,500 for the full initial term. Are you aware of this rate?
- This role requires your full commitment for the duration of the engagement. You will attend a daily standup at 12:00 GMT/BST Monday to Friday, submit a weekly worksheet every Friday, and deliver agreed monthly outputs on time. Can you commit to this as your primary engagement for the full three-month term?
Work Location:
Remote
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