Machine Learning Engineer – Rowden

Location: Bristol, UK

Compensation: £40,000 – £55,000 per year

Rowden is building the UK’s next‑generation engineering powerhouse, delivering critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience. Our solutions use intelligent automation to enhance speed and efficiency and are built for reliability in remote or high‑pressure settings.

Overview

We are growing our ML team to support new projects and product developments. As an ML Engineer you will work on developing and deploying AI systems to solve complex problems with real‑world impact. You’ll join an existing team that collaborates closely with software, hardware and systems colleagues to bring useful AI into the hands of users. The team works end‑to‑end – from R&D to deployment – across traditional ML, deep learning, data engineering, and LLM/agentic systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and ship models and services from prototyping to production, writing maintainable code, tests, and documentation.
• Experiment with data collection, feature engineering, model training and evaluation, and iterate with measurable outcomes.
• Implement MLOps practices: training/serving pipelines, experiment tracking, CI/CD for ML, and basic observability.
• Collaborate widely with software, systems and product teams to deliver features effectively.
• Share knowledge through pair programming, code reviews, and by contributing to a positive, pragmatic engineering culture.

Key Skills, Experience & Behaviours

• Applied ML experience: typically 1–5 years developing and delivering ML systems.
• ML fundamentals: solid grounding in core ML/DL methods and the mathematics that underpin them; ability to reason about failure modes and trade‑offs.
• LLMs & agentic systems: some hands‑on experience (e.g., RAG, evaluation, prompt tooling) and eagerness to deepen expertise.
• MLOps foundations: containerisation, reproducible training, experiment tracking, model packaging/serving, basic observability.
• Data engineering: experience with Databricks, Apache Spark, Delta Lake, MLflow, Unity Catalog, and Databricks SQL/Workflows.
• Software development: strong Python skills; experience with low‑level languages such as Rust is desirable.
• Product mindset & communication: care about user outcomes and can explain decisions clearly to non‑ML teammates.
• Builder, not just theorist: enjoy turning ideas into running systems and iterating with feedback.

Beneficial Knowledge

• General tooling and platforms: Databricks, AWS, GitHub, Docker/Kubernetes, MLflow, Jira.
• Edge deployments: Nvidia Jetson (e.g., AGX Orin), Raspberry Pi, or other embedded accelerators.
• LLM/Agent tooling: DSPy, llama.cpp, vLLM, evaluation harnesses, prompt optimisation, agent frameworks.

Working at Rowden

We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are. We support flexible, hybrid working – average three days in the office per week – and welcome discussions about flexibility, part‑time work or workplace adjustments.

Rowden is a Disability Confident and Committed company and actively encourages people with disabilities and health conditions to apply. Please let us know your requirements early on so we can make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.

Finally, if you feel that you don’t meet all the criteria above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we’d still love to hear from you!

Job Details

• Seniority level: Entry level
• Employment type: Full‑time
• Job function: Engineering and Information Technology
• Industries: Technology, Information and Internet