Senior AI Engineer

Senior AI Engineer

Imperagen | Full-time | Manchester, UK | On-site

UK right to work required. Imperagen is not able to provide visa or work permit sponsorship for this role.

Reports to

CTO

Location

Manchester, UK. This is an on-site role. Candidates should already be based within commuting distance of Manchester or be willing to relocate before their start date.

Manchester was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, a city with a history of transforming science, engineering, manufacturing, and technology at global scale. Today, it is one of the UK’s fastest-growing technology and AI hubs, with a strong ecosystem spanning advanced computing, life sciences, robotics, and deep-tech innovation.

Imperagen is building at the intersection of AI, biology, robotics, and industrial technology, making Manchester a natural home for the next generation of scientific and industrial innovation.

About Imperagen

Imperagen is a startup building an AI-powered enzyme engineering company focused on biocatalysis. Our mission is to accelerate the development of high-performance enzymes through the integration of artificial intelligence, computational modelling, robotics, laboratory automation, and advanced data infrastructure.

At the core of the company is Imperagen’s proprietary Digital Enzyme Evolution™ platform, a closed-loop enzyme optimisation system combining AI-guided protein engineering, high-throughput robotics, experimental validation, structured scientific databases, and iterative machine learning to continuously improve enzyme performance in real-world industrial environments.

Our integrated AI, robotics, and data platform creates continuous feedback between computational prediction and wet-lab experimentation, enabling faster discovery cycles, smarter optimisation, and compounding scientific learning over time.

We believe the future of industrial biotechnology will be driven by autonomous scientific systems where AI, robotics, software, databases, and experimental science operate together in tightly integrated learning loops.

Imperagen is building that future.

The Role

Imperagen is hiring a Senior AI Engineer to help build the AI systems powering the next generation of enzyme engineering.

This is a deeply hands-on role for an ambitious engineer who wants to work on real-world AI systems operating at the intersection of machine learning, robotics, scientific experimentation, and industrial biotechnology.

This is a hands-on senior individual contributor role. You will not be expected to own every technical domain on day one, but you should be comfortable working across AI, software, data, and scientific workflows as the platform evolves.

You will work directly with the CTO, scientists, software engineers, and automation teams to design and scale the company’s AI platform, helping connect models, data, robotics, laboratory workflows, and scientific decision-making into a continuously improving closed-loop system.

You will work across machine learning systems, AI-enabled tooling, scientific data infrastructure, automation pipelines, and practical scientific workflows.

This is not a traditional enterprise AI role – we are a startup. You will be building systems that interact directly with real-world experimentation, laboratory robotics, and scientific discovery processes.

We are looking for someone who moves fast, learns quickly, enjoys technical intensity, and is excited by the challenge of building practical AI systems inside a high-ambition deep-tech startup company.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and scale AI-powered software systems, machine learning infrastructure, and scientific data platforms

• Develop scalable pipelines for biological, experimental, and robotics-generated datasets

• Build and deploy AI models, automation systems, and AI-enabled tools that accelerate scientific workflows and internal decision-making

• Help architect Imperagen’s closed-loop AI, robotics, and scientific data platform

• Work closely with scientists and automation engineers to integrate AI systems with laboratory robotics and experimental workflows

• Rapidly prototype, iterate, and deploy AI-enabled systems using modern AI-assisted engineering workflows

• Leverage AI development tools, coding assistants, and automated engineering workflows to maximise development speed and experimentation velocity

• Contribute to scientific database architecture, knowledge systems, and scalable data infrastructure

• Solve difficult technical problems across machine learning, data systems, infrastructure, and scientific computing

• Participate in technical planning, architecture discussions, and platform evolution as the company scales

• Collaborate across AI, software, robotics, scientific, and operational teams to build tightly integrated technical systems

• Support and mentor junior engineers as the engineering organisation grows

Required Experience and Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, or another quantitative discipline

• 5+ years of professional experience building AI, machine learning, software, or data systems in industry, research, or high-performance technical environments, or exceptional evidence of equivalent capability

• Strong experience building and deploying AI or machine learning systems

• Strong software engineering skills with experience building scalable systems and infrastructure

• Hands-on experience with Python and modern AI/ML tooling and frameworks

• Experience working with databases, data engineering workflows, and large-scale data systems

• Experience designing APIs, backend systems, distributed systems, or scalable technical infrastructure

• Experience building or deploying AI-enabled tools, workflow automation systems, or agentic tooling

• Strong understanding of modern machine learning workflows, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring

• Strong problem-solving ability and comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous technical environments

• Strong communication and collaboration skills

• High levels of curiosity, ownership, and technical ambition

Preferred Experience

• Experience building AI systems in biotech, scientific computing, robotics, computational biology, or other deep-tech environments

• Experience working with noisy, sparse, experimental, or highly specialised datasets

• Experience using AI-assisted development environments, coding agents, or automated development workflows

• Experience working with cloud infrastructure, MLOps, distributed systems, or scalable AI platforms

• Familiarity with laboratory automation systems, robotics platforms, or closed-loop experimentation workflows

• Experience contributing to fast-moving startup or scale-up environments where execution speed matters

• Experience mentoring engineers or contributing to technical leadership initiatives

• Interest in protein engineering, computational biology, biocatalysis, scientific AI systems, or autonomous experimentation

What Success Looks Like

• Delivering meaningful technical contributions to Imperagen’s AI, robotics, and scientific data platform

• Building scalable AI systems that improve scientific discovery and experimental decision-making

• Deploying AI-enabled automation and workflow tooling into real-world scientific operations

• Accelerating the performance and intelligence of Imperagen’s closed-loop optimisation platform

• Helping increase development speed, experimentation velocity, and platform capability across the company

• Contributing to the long-term technical advantage of Imperagen’s AI-driven biocatalysis platform

Compensation

Compensation will be calibrated for senior AI/software engineering talent in the Manchester market and will include salary plus equity participation, alongside the opportunity to help build a category-defining company operating at the intersection of AI, robotics, biology, scientific computing, and industrial impact.

Why Join Imperagen

This is an opportunity to build AI systems that interact directly with the physical world.

At Imperagen, machine learning models do not sit in isolation; they connect to robotics systems, scientific databases, laboratory experimentation, and real industrial outcomes.

You will help build practical AI-enabled tools and workflows that improve model development, scientific decision-making, data quality, and experimental throughput.

You will work alongside highly technical scientists and engineers on ambitious problems that combine AI, robotics, software infrastructure, biology, and experimental science into a single integrated platform.

If you are excited by scientific AI systems, autonomous experimentation, AI-assisted engineering, scientific computing, and building technology with real-world industrial impact, we would love to hear from you.

Applications

Relevant candidates should reach out to us on: senior_ai_engineer@imperagen.com