Senior / Lead Data Scientist - AI Agents - Outside IR35

Senior Data Scientist – AI Agents Location: Hybrid, 1 day per week in London Contract: Outside IR35We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist with proven experience in the design, deployment, and testing of AI Agent solutions. This role is central to a project building and integrating AI-powered agents into an automated insurance workflow, with a strong emphasis on hands-on delivery and technical leadership.The position requires someone comfortable working end-to-end: from shaping how LLMs are applied, through to coding integrations and ensuring robust deployment into a cloud environment. Alongside delivery, you will provide guidance and oversight to a junior Data Scientist contributing to the build.Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design and architecture of AI Agent solutions, ensuring they align to integration specifications.
• Build, refine, and test prompt engineering methods for large language models.
• Develop and validate API integrations to embed agents into live workflows.
• Deploy containerised applications into Azure (or another major cloud).
• Define and run testing and evaluation frameworks to measure agent performance.
• Mentor and support a junior Data Scientist, ensuring high standards of delivery.
• Collaborate with architects, engineers, and business teams to embed solutions effectively.
• Produce clear reporting on outcomes and outline recommendations for scaling.

Required Experience

• Advanced proficiency in Python for AI/ML development.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, including prompt engineering and applied use cases.
• Track record of designing, deploying, and testing AI Agents in production environments.
• Strong understanding of cloud deployments (Azure preferred, others considered).
• Experience providing technical oversight and mentoring.