AWS Cloud Engineer 3 month Contract
Ladybird -
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 cloud infrastructure engineering. You will build and own the full AWS environment that powers inCall, from SIP trunk to NHS FHIR API integration to audit logging. This is not an oversight role. You build it.
Requirement
You must have production AWS experience building cloud infrastructure for voice or telephony systems.
The inCall stack you will build:
- 3CX telephony connected via SIP trunk to FreeSWITCH on dual-AZ AWS EC2
- AWS VPC, NLB, Route 53, Lambda, API Gateway
- NHS PDS FHIR API integration via Lambda
- AWS Transcribe (en-GB) for speech-to-text
- ElevenLabs for text-to-speech
- CloudWatch and S3 for PII-safe audit logging
- CI/CD pipeline via GitLab
- Terraform for all infrastructure-as-code
If you have never built production SIP/telephony infrastructure on AWS, this role is not for you.
What you will build
✔ 3CX SIP trunk FreeSWITCH on dual-AZ AWS EC2
✔ NHS PDS FHIR Lambda - patient identity verification
✔ Full voice pipeline: Transcribe/OpenAI/ElevenLabs/playback
✔ PII-safe CloudWatch/S3 audit logging
✔ CI/CD pipeline and Terraform IaC
✔ React receptionist dashboard (Month 3)
✔ CTI event layer, SNS/EventBridge with mock EMIS subscriber
3-month delivery plan
Month 1: 3CX configured. SIP trunk live. Dual-AZ VPC deployed. First inbound call confirmed end-to-end. NHS PDS FHIR Lambda deployed and logging.
Month 2: Full IVR built. All NHS PDS FHIR error scenarios handled. OpenAI, Transcribe, and ElevenLabs integrated. Audit logging schema correct. AZ failover confirmed.
Month 3: Full end-to-end POC demo. React receptionist app delivered. CTI event layer confirmed. POC-to-production migration plan documented.
You must have
- Production AWS - VPC, EC2, Lambda, NLB, Route 53, CloudWatch, API Gateway
- SIP trunk configuration and troubleshooting in production
- FreeSWITCH or equivalent open-source PBX experience
- RTP media handling, NAT traversal, one-way audio diagnosis
- Terraform and GitLab CI/CD
- NHS or regulated data handling awareness
- Experience delivering production-ready infrastructure independently
Useful but not essential
3CX · NHS FHIR API · ElevenLabs · AWS Transcribe · MongoDB · React
Not suitable if
- You have never built production SIP or telephony infrastructure
- You are looking for an architecture or oversight role
- You are not comfortable owning infrastructure end-to-end and delivering monthly against acceptance criteria
The opportunity
inCall is Stage 1 of a four-stage NHS AI telephony platform. The Cloud Engineer who builds this POC is strongly positioned for Stages 2–4.
How to apply 3 stages
You must complete the application form to be considered. CVs sent directly will not be reviewed.
① Form: https://ladybirdltd.jp.larksuite.com/share/base/form/shrjpDZA9DO28tKsWj8Al9ikbob
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 is £500 per calendar month inclusive of VAT, totalling £1,500 for the full initial term. Payment is made monthly within 7 days of invoice, subject to acceptance of that month's deliverables. Are you aware of this rate?
- This role requires your full commitment for three months. 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