KDR Talent Solutions
Senior AI Engineer
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Senior AI Engineer
Senior AI Engineer
London (Paddington) | Hybrid (3 Days Office / 2 Days Remote)
£130,000 - £180,000 + 20% Bonus + Private Healthcare + Future Equity Opportunity
Shape the Future of AI-Powered Trading
We're partnering with an exceptionally well-funded technology business on a mission to transform how institutional trading firms, hedge funds and financial organisations research, design and execute trading strategies.
Having built a sophisticated AI-powered trading platform and reached a critical stage in its evolution, the business is now investing heavily in its next phase of growth. This is a rare opportunity to join at an early stage, influence the direction of a genuinely innovative product and work on some of the most exciting challenges in applied AI today.
If you're motivated by cutting-edge AI, complex technical problems and the opportunity to build products that deliver real-world impact, this could be the role you've been waiting for.
The Opportunity
As a Senior AI Research Engineer, you'll sit at the intersection of advanced AI research and software engineering, helping to design, build and deploy intelligent systems that power the next generation of trading and research workflows.
This is far more than a traditional Machine Learning or Data Science position. We're looking for someone who thrives on turning research concepts into production-ready systems, enjoys experimenting with emerging AI technologies and wants to own meaningful product areas from idea through to deployment.
You'll join a highly talented team where innovation, autonomy and technical excellence are genuinely valued, and where your work will have a direct influence on both the platform and wider business strategy.
What You'll Be Doing
- Designing and deploying LLM-powered and agentic AI systems for strategy generation, market intelligence and quantitative research.
- Building evaluation, experimentation and monitoring frameworks to improve model performance and reliability.
- Enhancing existing AI capabilities while developing entirely new AI-driven features and products.
- Developing production-grade AI infrastructure, inference services and data pipelines.
- Researching, testing and implementing the latest AI models, techniques and architectures.
- Improving model robustness, scalability, observability and operational performance.
- Collaborating with engineers, product leaders and quantitative specialists to deliver innovative solutions at scale.
- Helping shape the future direction of AI across the organisation.
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What We're Looking For
Essential
- Strong commercial experience in AI Engineering, Machine Learning Engineering or Applied AI.
- Proven track record of building and shipping AI-powered products into production environments.
- Hands-on experience with LLMs, Generative AI and/or Agentic AI systems.
- Excellent Python development skills.
- Strong experience with modern AI frameworks and tooling such as PyTorch, Hugging Face and leading foundation model providers.
- A research-led mindset combined with the ability to execute and deliver commercially valuable solutions.
- Strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to take ownership of complex technical challenges.
- Comfortable working in fast-paced, evolving environments where ambiguity is often part of the journey.
Desirable
- PhD or advanced academic research background.
- Experience fine-tuning open-source LLMs.
- Knowledge of AI evaluation frameworks and observability tooling.
- Experience with cloud-native technologies, Kubernetes and modern distributed systems.
- Exposure to quantitative finance, trading or financial markets.
- Finance experience is not essential. The business believes exceptional AI talent can learn the domain, but deep AI expertise is far harder to find.
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Why Join?
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Work on Genuinely Cutting-Edge AI
- AI sits at the core of the business strategy, not on the sidelines. You'll be solving challenging real-world problems using the latest advancements in LLMs, agents and intelligent systems.
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Build in a True Greenfield Environment
- This is an opportunity to influence architecture, tooling, product direction and technical standards from an early stage.
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High Levels of Ownership
- You'll have the freedom to make decisions, drive initiatives and see your ideas become reality in a business that values entrepreneurial thinking.
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Career Growth Without Limits
- Rather than fitting into a rigid corporate structure, you'll have the opportunity to shape your own path as the company scales.
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Learn From a High-Calibre Team
- Work alongside experienced engineers, AI specialists, quantitative researchers and leadership who are building a genuinely innovative platform.
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Real Business Impact
- Your work won't sit in research papers or proof-of-concepts. You'll be building AI systems that directly influence products, users and commercial outcomes.
Package
- £130,000 - £180,000 Base Salary
- 20% Target Annual Bonus
- Private Healthcare
- Hybrid Working (3 Days London Office / 2 Days Remote)
- Future Equity Opportunity
- Direct Access to Founders and Senior Leadership
- Significant Scope for Career Progression
- Opportunity to Influence Product, Technology and Business Strategy
If you're an ambitious AI Engineer, Applied AI Researcher or Machine Learning specialist looking for a role where you can combine cutting-edge research with real-world product development, we'd love to hear from you. This is a chance to join a business at a pivotal stage of growth and play a key role in shaping the future of AI-driven technology.
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