AI/ML LLM Engineer 3 Month Contract

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

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

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

You must complete the application form to be considered. CVs sent directly will not be reviewed.

① Complete Form: https://ladybirdltd.jp.larksuite.com/share/base/form/shrjpwYz1RbzWxvm4rVRRlkYngf
② Video: 60–120 second intro video. 3 questions, full brief provided
③ 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