Senior Applied AI Engineer - Contract

Senior Applied AI Scientist

Contract |Remote (UK) | Competitive day rate | SC clearance |

Morela is proud to be supporting a venture-backed UK technology business building AI systems for highly regulated and security-sensitive environments. They are standing up a brand new modelling and optimisation capability, and this is one of the first senior hires into it.

The work is physics-based performance modelling, and the optimisation that turns those models into actual decisions. Concept through to robust, tested production code running against real data on a cloud platform. It is hands-on and delivery-focused, and suits applied ML engineers who build and ship models just as well as people from a research background. The role is deliberately shaped to flex: depending on your strengths you might focus on building and shipping the models, or take on more of the modelling and optimisation approach itself, inside a delivery-driven, highly autonomous, full-stack engineering team.

THE PROBLEM

• Physics-based prediction. Models that predict how a system performs under varying environmental conditions, fed by meteorological forecast data, calibrated and validated against real data rather than left as a notebook.
• Optimisation that bites. Optimising configuration and resource allocation against modelled performance, including optimisation under uncertainty. This is where the modelling becomes a decision.
• Defensible outputs. Results have to be correct, explainable and defensible under independent validation, benchmarked against reference cases. Nothing here can be a black box.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Implement, calibrate and validate physics-based performance models, and build the pipelines around them covering data preparation, calibration, evaluation and deployment.
• Implement optimisation methods, including optimisation under uncertainty, against modelled performance, and integrate meteorological forecast data into the models.
• Evaluate and benchmark outputs against reference cases so results stand up to independent validation, and write secure, high-performance production Python that meets regulated-environment standards.
• Build the decision-support outputs that surface results to operators, working closely with data, platform and product teams, and contribute to the technical development of the wider team.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

• Strong experience implementing mathematical, physics-based or simulation models in production systems, not only in research code.
• Fluent scientific Python, NumPy, SciPy and similar, with solid software engineering fundamentals.
• Experience with simulation, numerical methods or optimisation techniques, including optimisation under uncertainty.
• A strong academic background in a quantitative field such as physics, applied mathematics or statistics, and the mathematical instinct to pick up an unfamiliar technical domain quickly.
• A track record of taking modelling work from prototype through to tested, production-quality code.
• SC clearance. Active clearance is strongly preferred for this contract given programme timelines; for the right person, genuine eligibility will be considered.

WHAT WOULD HELP

• Signal processing, time-series or sensor-data modelling, advanced simulation techniques, and defence modelling and simulation or operational analysis experience.
• Machine learning applied alongside physics-based modelling, such as surrogate models or calibration from operational data, and containerised deployment with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Publications or a research background, decision-support or operational planning systems, and mentoring experience or the appetite to grow into it.

CONTRACT TERMS AND CLEARANCE

• Competitive day rate £500/£550per day, negotiable depending on experience and clearance status. Active SC sits at the top of the range.
• Remote across the UK, with occasional travel to client sites. Duration and IR35 status confirmed on application.

• Read this carefully. SC eligibility requires a provable five-year UK address history. If you have lived outside the UK within that window, this will be difficult on this programme's timeline. A DBS check or BPSS clearance is not the same as SC.

For a confidential conversation and the client name, email adam.moore@morela.co.uk