This range is provided by Lloyds Banking Group. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

Base pay range

£70,929 - £78,810 per annum

Recruiting for the future of data & technology at Lloyds Banking Group

JOB TITLE: Senior Data & AI Scientist
SALARY: £70,929 - £78,810 per annum
LOCATION: Bristol
HOURS: Full-time
WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of our time, at one of our office sites.

We're expanding the Conversation Experience Team with a Senior Data & AI Scientist to help develop an AI Agent framework that demonstrates the latest AI, automation, and cloud technologies at Lloyds Banking Group.

About this opportunity
The Analytics & AI Services Platform employs modern technology while partnering with diverse teams across the Group to solve complex business challenges.

Within the Analytics & AI Services Platform, the Conversation Experience Team are focussed on using data science and AI to create outstanding customer experiences, whether for internal engineers or external retail customers, by harnessing data science and AI.

You'll work on innovative projects like developing a next-generation agent-based Chatbot-as-a-Service, using voice, chat, and other data sources. The role also offers the chance to mentor junior colleagues, engage with a wide range of stakeholders, and ensure the delivery of high-quality data science products in a collaborative, forward-thinking environment.

Day to day, you will:

• Develop agent-based systems that use large language models and other AI models to automate complex workflows, such as conversation quality monitoring, customer support, or document processing.
• Run experiments to test new agent capabilities, fine-tune models, and iterate on prompt engineering and feature selection.
• Automate data pipelines end-to-end, from data ingestion and preparation to model training, evaluation, and deployment, including integrating agents into cloud-native environments and ensuring they scale and operate reliably.
• Engage confidently with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, adapting your communication style to explain complex AI and data science concepts clearly, gather requirements, and ensure alignment across diverse audiences.
• Design and run experiments to validate new features or agent behaviours and interpret results to inform further development.
• Contribute towards developing a reusable banks of scenarios to test agent responses, define what constitutes a "good" response, and integrate these evaluations into development workflows.
• Establish both generic and bespoke metrics for agent performance, using a mix of human and AI-based evaluation methods to ensure robust, scalable measurement.
• Set up monitoring and validation frameworks to ensure agents perform as expected in production and quickly identify and address issues.
• Work closely with engineering, DevOps, risk, security, and business teams to deliver agent-based solutions that meet governance and compliance standards.
• Translate technical findings into actionable insights for business stakeholders, tailoring communication to different audiences.
• Informally coach more junior colleagues and contribute to the wider data science and AI community within the organisation.
• Embed ethical considerations into agent development, using frameworks and toolkits to ensure fairness, transparency, and compliance.
• Advise on and improve security processes, ensuring that agents and data pipelines are robust against threats.
• Keep up with the latest developments in data science, AI agents, generative AI, and automation, and experiment with new tools and techniques.
• Collaborate with management to advise on feasibility and resource requirements of strategic goals. Work with your team to plan and achieve those goals.

What you'll need:

• Experience working with AI agent including prompt engineering and tool definition/selection to build Large Language Model (LLM)-based applications.
• Degree qualified in a relevant field or equivalent work experience.
• Experience in leading a small team and managing projects.
• Have industry experience as a data scientist, working with Natural Language Processing (NLP) / Machine Learning (ML) / GenAI models, and having extensive production experience in Python.
• Advanced experience in applying deep learning, machine learning, analytical techniques, data processing, clustering, regression, and classification to create ML models that will help business stakeholders understand unstructured data and semi-structured data within the organisation.
• Proven track record of creating ML/LLM Ops and end-to-end pipelines on both on-premises and cloud platforms.
• Effective performance under pressure, delivering high-quality work within project timelines, and providing guidance to other team members.
• Ability to learn quickly and recommend/adopt new open-source technologies emerging in the industry.
• Extensive coding/scripting experience (Python) developed in a commercial/industry setting.
• Solid understanding of Python, including writing modular Pythonic code, familiarity with core Python data structures, fluency with pandas, and experience with unit testing.
• Experience managing and mentoring junior colleagues.
• Experience with chatbots and working with chat data.

About working for us
Our focus is to ensure we're inclusive every day, building an organisation that reflects modern society and celebrates diversity in all its forms.

We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%
• An annual performance-related bonus
• Share schemes including free shares
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
• 30 days' holiday, with bank holidays on top
• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies