Senior AI Search Engineer; OpenSearch, AI Search, LLM, Data Science
Posted Today by Digital Skills Ltd
Negotiable
Outside
Remote
Europe , UK
Summary: The Senior AI Search Engineer will play a pivotal role in transforming a global sports and fashion brand's digital commerce capabilities by developing an AI-driven search and merchandising platform. This position requires extensive experience in AI search solutions, particularly with OpenSearch and LLMs, to enhance user experience and search relevance. The role is fully remote, requiring alignment with Central European time, and is expected to last until the end of Q3 2026 with a strong likelihood of extension. The position is classified as outside IR35 due to the nature of the engagement with a European client.
Key Responsibilities:
- Design, configure and optimise OpenSearch based search relevance and retrieval pipelines
- Develop and enhance AI-driven search capabilities, including semantic and hybrid search approaches
- Apply LLMs to query understanding, intent detection and ranking optimisation
- Build and refine ranking models using behavioural, relevance and commercial signals
- Contribute data science expertise to optimise an existing proof of concept
- Explore and implement personalisation techniques within search and PLP ranking
- Work closely within an agile Scrum team, contributing to sprint planning and delivery
- Produce clear technical documentation and implementation guidelines
Key Skills:
- Extensive experience delivering AI powered search solutions at scale
- Strong hands on expertise with OpenSearch or Elasticsearch
- Proven experience applying LLMs to search, relevance or ranking problems
- Solid data science background, including machine learning applied to ranking or retrieval
- Experience with semantic search, hybrid retrieval and keyword optimisation
- AWS based Back End experience
- E-commerce experience beneficial but not essential
Salary (Rate): £600 daily
City: undetermined
Country: UK
Working Arrangements: remote
IR35 Status: outside IR35
Seniority Level: Senior
Industry: IT
Detailed Description From Employer:
Senior AI Search Engineer
OpenSearch, AI Search, LLM, Data Science
The Rate - €600/€700 per day
The Location - Remote, must work to Central European time
The Working Pattern - 100% remote
Duration - Initial engagement to end of Q3 2026, with strong likelihood of extension
This is working for a European cliant, paying in Euro, so outside IR35
About the Client
Digital Skills are working with a Global Sports and Fashion Brand undertaking a strategic transformation of its digital commerce capabilities. The client, a Powerhouse, global brand are replacing a Legacy keyword based E-commerce search tool with a modern, AI driven search and merchandising platform focused on semantic understanding and personalisation at scale. This will be used across their website and E-commerce platforms, globally.
About the Role
This role requires a senior, hands on AI Search specialist to play a critical part in the evolution of an in house search platform. You will work within a small, agile team, applying advanced AI, LLM and data science techniques to improve relevance, ranking and user experience across large scale E-commerce search journeys.
Responsibilities
- Design, configure and optimise OpenSearch based search relevance and retrieval pipelines
- Develop and enhance AI-driven search capabilities, including semantic and hybrid search approaches
- Apply LLMs to query understanding, intent detection and ranking optimisation
- Build and refine ranking models using behavioural, relevance and commercial signals
- Contribute data science expertise to optimise an existing proof of concept
- Explore and implement personalisation techniques within search and PLP ranking
- Work closely within an agile Scrum team, contributing to sprint planning and delivery
- Produce clear technical documentation and implementation guidelines
Desired Skills and Experience
- Extensive experience delivering AI powered search solutions at scale
- Strong hands on expertise with OpenSearch or Elasticsearch
- Proven experience applying LLMs to search, relevance or ranking problems
- Solid data science background, including machine learning applied to ranking or retrieval
- Experience with semantic search, hybrid retrieval and keyword optimisation
- AWS based Back End experience
- E-commerce experience beneficial but not essential
Summary of the Best Candidate
The ideal candidate is a senior AI Search Engineer or Consultant with deep experience in OpenSearch, AI search systems and LLM driven relevance.
You will be comfortable operating autonomously in an agile environment, bringing strong data science capability and practical experience of improving large scale search performance.
This role suits someone who enjoys working on complex, forward looking search problems with clear realworld impact.