Senior Data & AI Scientist

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. The team has a focus on using voice and chat data, along with other data sources, to support the development of a new agent-based Chatbot-as-a-Service. Additionally, mentoring junior colleagues and guaranteeing the delivery of high-quality data science products are part of the responsibilities.

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.

If you’re passionate about shaping the future of AI-driven customer experience and thrive on variety, this is the place for you.

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.

Why Lloyds Banking Group
If you think all banks are the same, you’d be wrong. We’re an innovative, fast-changing business that’s shaping finance as a force for good. A bank that’s empowering its people to innovate, explore possibilities and grow with purpose.

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.
•    Experience in leading enterprise-level projects, with the ability to automate and enhance the current modelling structure.
•    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.
•    Strong theoretical and applied knowledge of Machine Learning techniques, especially in the Natural Language domain or when working with other unstructured data.
•    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.

And any experience of these would be really useful:
•    Hands-on work experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) implementations.
•    Experience in implementing and supporting Machine Learning systems, including automating data validation, model training, model validation, and model monitoring.
•    Awareness of the latest industry technical developments, emerging trends, and new technologies related to Natural Language and Generative AI.
•    Docker containerisation to create Docker containers from scratch.
•    Experience in infrastructure via Terraform or any other tool resulting in build, test and maintaining it.
•    Knowledge of data visualisation tools, such as Tableau, to build dashboards and produce outcomes by combining structured and unstructured 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 want our people to feel that they belong and can be their best, regardless of background, identity or culture. We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer initiative. And it’s why we especially welcome applications from under-represented groups. We’re disability confident. So, if you’d like reasonable adjustments to be made to our recruitment processes, just let us know.

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

If you’re excited by the thought of becoming part of our team, get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.