--- title: 'Senior ML Engineer (Remote, Contract) [HR216] at Smart Working Solutions' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-ml-engineer-remote-contract-hr216-smart-working-solutions-india-kwd4nxbm4y53' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-15' --- # Senior ML Engineer (Remote, Contract) [HR216] at Smart Working Solutions - **Company:** Smart Working Solutions - **Location:** India - **Employment:** part-time - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-10-06 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-15 - **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/smart-working-solutions/3e2a7d86-7898-4488-9581-19b736b2e480 ## Job description ## About Smart Working At Smart Working, we believe your job should not only look right on paper but also feel right every day. This isn’t just another remote opportunity — it’s about finding where you truly belong, no matter where you are. From day one, you’re welcomed into a genuine community that values your growth and well-being. Our mission is simple: to break down geographic barriers and connect skilled professionals with outstanding global teams and products for full-time, long-term roles. We help you discover meaningful work with teams that invest in your success, where you’re empowered to grow personally and professionally. Join one of the highest-rated workplaces on Glassdoor and experience what it means to thrive in a truly remote-first world. ## About the Role We are seeking a Senior ML Engineer with strong experience across Applied AI, Machine Learning and MLOps to help build and modernise a new AI platform. This role sits primarily between Applied AI and MLOps, with backend/platform engineering experience supporting the productionisation of ML capabilities. You will work on both building new ML components from scratch and re-engineering existing capabilities into reliable, observable and production-ready systems. The focus is not purely on model development or experimentation. You should have genuine experience productionising, deploying, evaluating and operating AI/ML applications, with a strong understanding of the challenges encountered when running these systems in production. You will work on modernising existing NLP, generative AI and other ML capabilities while creating an architecture that makes new models easier to integrate, evaluate, monitor and deploy. ## Responsibilities - Refactor, modernise and productionise existing ML models and Applied AI capabilities, including NLP and generative AI solutions. - Build new ML components and re-engineer existing models into standardised, production-ready modular components. - Develop production ML applications and supporting services primarily using Python. - Build and maintain reliable ML pipelines covering model integration, evaluation, deployment and operation. - Engineer resilient ML workflows with appropriate retry logic, error handling and repeatable execution. - Design and automate model evaluation pipelines using golden datasets and appropriate quality and performance thresholds. - Evaluate different types of models using metrics appropriate to their outputs, including generative AI, classification and other ML use cases. - Implement appropriate guardrails and evaluation mechanisms to assess grounding, hallucinations and quality of generative AI outputs. - Apply Applied AI techniques, including RAG, where appropriate to the ML capabilities being developed. - Design mechanisms for model, prompt and input-data provenance to support auditability and reproducibility. - Build infrastructure supporting shadow testing, A/B testing, fallback strategies and kill switches for safe ML deployment. - Support the labelling, curation and ongoing development of golden datasets used for model evaluation. - Build structured human-in-the-loop feedback pipelines to capture reviews and corrections and improve ML datasets. - Integrate third-party AI APIs and build appropriate adapter/API interfaces. - Implement observability and telemetry covering model behaviour, errors, compute costs, token usage and latency. - Contribute backend engineering capability required to integrate ML components reliably into the wider application. - Support both batch and real-time ML workloads as the platform develops. - Help improve the platform's extensibility, resilience, error tracking and ability to integrate new ML models efficiently. ## Requirements - 6+ years of professional AI/Machine Learning experience, with genuine production experience. - 5+ years of professional MLOps experience. - At least 2+ years of real Applied AI experience, working with AI/ML capabilities beyond experimentation or personal projects. - Strong professional Python experience; Python is the core programming language for this role. - Experience with Docker and Kubernetes. - Proven experience productionising and deploying AI/ML applications and models. - Strong understanding of both Applied AI/ML and MLOps, rather than experience limited solely to model research or experimentation. - Strong hands-on experience with model evaluation and defining appropriate quality/performance criteria for production ML systems. - Experience working with generative AI/LLMs and understanding evaluation considerations such as grounding and hallucination. - Hands-on understanding of RAG and other Applied AI techniques. - Experience building and operating ML pipelines and production ML architectures. - Experience designing reliable ML workflows with appropriate error handling, retry mechanisms and repeatable execution. - Experience working with golden datasets and using them for model evaluation and quality gating. - Experience building observable ML systems using appropriate logging, monitoring and telemetry. - Understanding of model/data provenance, auditability and reproducibility. - Experience implementing safe production deployment practices for ML systems, including appropriate testing, fallback or fail-safe mechanisms. - Sufficient backend engineering experience to build APIs, integrations and production-ready services around ML capabilities. - Experience solving real production ML problems, including reliability, deployment, integration, evaluation or performance challenges. - Familiarity with governance, compliance and safeguards relating to sensitive data and AI-generated outputs. ## Nice to Have - Experience with FastAPI for building Python-based ML APIs. - Exposure to Argo Workflows or similar DAG-based orchestration frameworks. - Experience working with one or more major cloud platforms: AWS, Azure or GCP. - Multi-cloud or cloud-agnostic application experience. - Experience or understanding of TypeScript and/or Go. - Production experience with speech-to-text or transcription models. - Experience working with real-time ML applications. - Experience with traditional NLP models, transformer-based models, encoders and decoders. - Experience integrating external models/providers such as OpenAI or Claude. ## About Smart Working Solutions ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Smart Working provides a "Tech Talent as a Service" model, delivering rigorously vetted remote software engineers and AI specialists who are fully embedded into clients’ teams. - **Entity Type**: Private (Privately Held) - **Headquarters**: London, United Kingdom - **Founded**: Not publicly available - **Founders**: Oli Rowse (Co-Founder), Max Rowse (Co-Founder), Julian Rowse (Director & Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: IT Services and IT Consulting - **Target customers**: B2B – mid‑market to enterprise clients in the UK and USA seeking to scale engineering teams without traditional hiring overhead - **Mission / purpose**: "Building high‑performance global engineering teams without the friction, risk, or overhead of legacy hiring models." ## Products & Services - **Tech Talent as a Service (TTaaS)**: A fully managed service that includes vetting, onboarding, payroll, HR administration, performance management, compliance, and continuous AI training. Engineers work the client’s hours, join their standups, and integrate into existing Slack/communication channels. Pricing starts at ~£20–£25/hour all‑inclusive. ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: 123 employees (78% year‑over‑year growth); serves 60+ clients in the UK and USA - **Notable Investors / Partners**: Not publicly listed - **Growth Signals**: - 78% headcount growth YoY - Average engineer tenure of 26 months (low churn for the industry) - Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 75 - ISO 27001 certified - 4‑stage vetting process that admits only ~1% of ~100,000 monthly applicants - Continuous AI Academy training for all engineers ## Competitive Advantages - **Rigorous vetting**: 4‑stage process (AI‑assisted screening, advanced technical assessments, communication tests, live technical interview) ensures top‑1% talent. - **Full embedding**: Engineers work the client’s exact hours, attend meetings, and use the client’s tools – eliminating the disconnect typical of offshore outsourcing. - **Low churn guarantee**: Average 26‑month tenure; if an engineer leaves, they are replaced at no extra cost. - **All‑inclusive pricing**: Single monthly invoice covers vetting, onboarding, payroll, HR, compliance, performance management, and AI training. - **Security & compliance**: ISO 27001 certified with comprehensive background screening. ## Strategic Focus - Scaling the “Tech Talent as a Service” model to more clients while maintaining high quality and low churn. - Continuous investment in AI training (AI Academy) to keep engineers ahead of emerging technologies. - Expanding the client base beyond the UK and USA into other English‑speaking markets. ## Why Work Here - **Culture & ratings**: Employer rating of 4.7/5 on LinkedIn (196 reviews) with strong scores for work‑life balance (4.7), compensation (4.5), culture (4.6), and career growth (4.5). - **Remote‑first**: All roles are fully remote, with engineers distributed across 18 countries. The model supports full‑time, contractual, and part‑time engagements. - **Stability & impact**: Engineers work directly with 60+ clients on meaningful products and receive continuous training in AI and modern tech stacks. - **Support**: Dedicated Account Managers and Customer Success teams handle performance, compliance, and career development. - **Perks**: All‑inclusive payroll handling, no lock‑in contracts (1‑month calibration + 6‑month minimum), and a replacement guarantee. ## Sources 1. [smartworking.io](https://smartworking.io/) 2. [linkedin.com](https://uk.linkedin.com/company/smartworkingsolutions) 3. [lever.co](https://jobs.lever.co/smart-working-solutions) 4. [simplify.jobs](https://simplify.jobs/c/Smart-Working-Solutions) ## Other roles at Smart Working Solutions - [Senior Python Engineer - Data ( Remote, Full-Time) [AS340]](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-python-engineer-data-remote-full-time-as340-smart-working-solutions-india-be3rnb0jh4z5) — India - [Sr. Machine Learning Engineer (Remote, Contract) [HR216] (PK)](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-machine-learning-engineer-remote-contract-hr216-pk-smart-working-solutions-mvzknam5mpjn) — Pakistan - [Mobile Developer - .NET MAUI & C# (Remote, Full-Time) [AS338]](https://feeny.ai/job/mobile-developer-net-maui-c-remote-full-time-as338-smart-working-solutions-india-7876t47qdq49) — India - [Senior PHP Engineer (Remote, Full-Time) [AR025] (PK)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-php-engineer-remote-full-time-ar025-pk-smart-working-solutions-pakistan-5cenyy901bzc) — Pakistan - [Senior PHP Backend Engineer (Remote, Full-Time) [AR025]](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-php-backend-engineer-remote-full-time-ar025-smart-working-solutions-india-jja4sba4ft7p) — India - [Sr. PHP Symfony Engineer (Remote, Full-Time) [AR024]](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-php-symfony-engineer-remote-full-time-ar024-smart-working-solutions-london-tcgksxqgk3ng) — London, United Kingdom - [Mid-Level Data Engineer (Onsite, Full-Time) [HR215]](https://feeny.ai/job/mid-level-data-engineer-onsite-full-time-hr215-smart-working-solutions-bucharest-s8m3se7en6ay) — Bucharest, Romania - [Senior Full Stack Developer (Remote, Contractual) [HR214] PK](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-full-stack-developer-remote-contractual-hr214-pk-smart-working-solutions-sc8sqq8s8b5d) — Pakistan - [Senior Full Stack Developer (Remote, Contractual) [HR214]](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-full-stack-developer-remote-contractual-hr214-smart-working-solutions-erem5w1z0qrr) — Delhi, India - [Technical SEO Manager - React/Next.js (Remote, Full - Time) [HR210]](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-seo-manager-react-next-js-remote-full-time-hr210-smart-working-8ek58aj485e8) — India