Lead technical ownership of a university-wide AI platform, building secure, scalable AI applications and RAG systems to support education, research and operations.
Role Overview
The AI@Kent team within the Student Life Directorate is seeking a Lead AI Platform Engineer to take technical ownership of the University’s institutionally approved AI platform. The role focuses on secure platform operation and the design, development and deployment of high-quality AI-powered applications supporting education, research and professional services.
Key Responsibilities
- Manage the University’s AI platform, including configuration, permissions, safety guardrails, monitoring, credit management and incident escalation.
- Design, develop, test and deploy AI-powered applications and integrations using modern engineering practices.
- Build and maintain retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, including document ingestion, embeddings, vector databases and retrieval logic.
- Ensure compliance with University policies, data protection requirements and regulatory, ethical and security standards.
- Contribute to institutional AI governance with Information Governance, Legal and IT Security teams.
Requirements
- Degree or equivalent professional experience in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science or related field.
- Strong programming skills in Python, including API and backend development.
- Experience building AI-enabled applications integrating large language models via APIs.
- Experience developing and deploying applications in a cloud environment, ideally Microsoft Azure.
Additional Information
Salary: £48,822 to £54,893 per annum (Grade 8). For more information about working at Kent, visit http://www.kent.ac.uk/about/.