Aston Digital Futures Institute
Location:
Hybrid - minimum 2 days working at company office: Phoebus Software Limited, Lansdowne Gate, 65 New Road, Solihull, West Midlands, B91 3DL
Salary:
£45,000 per annum
Contract Type:
Fixed Term (36 months)
Basis:
Full Time
Closing Date:
23.59 hours BST on Sunday 27 April 2025
Interview Date:
Monday 12 May 2025
Reference:
0104-25
Release Date:
Thursday 27 March 2025
This Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project will revolutionise the user/customer experience in the financial sector by the development of an "Intelligent Service Platform (ISP)", a conversational query tool, based on a private Large Language Model (LLM), which will leverage Generative AI to allow an agent or borrower to answer queries relating to an account in plain language.
Phoebus Software is an independent software house founded in 1989 and a leading provider of real-time loan and savings management systems for retail banks, building societies, lending businesses and third-party services across the UK and Ireland.
The KTP will boost Phoebus' client offering, with improved ease and speed to access data and information within the complex loan and savings platform and associated database. Accuracy is a key aspect as the ISP will query only the data in the system.
This KTP is a great opportunity for someone who wishes to plan and deliver business change. You will work with senior University academics on a commercial project which puts theory and modelling into practice.
Candidate Profile: Minimum Masters' level degree in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and/or Data Analytics with relevant practical / work experience in the field. A PhD would be desirable.
Skills/ experience required include:
Essential
- Robust knowledge and demonstrable project experience in data science, predictive analytics, and Generative AI (GenAI)
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- Strong database skills - able to understand existing databases and data structures which will form the basis of the ISP, and be able to structure the new database, likely to be a vector database
- Excellent communication skills at all levels including the ability to train staff and work with diverse user groups across academia and industry
- Strong time management skills
- Proven ability to solve large complex problems
- Basic understanding of GDPR requirements and constraints
- Basic understanding of the commercial and technical constraints which come with working in a heavily regulated industry
Experience in the following would be desirable:
- Experience in a research or commercial environment in a similar sector or application domain
- Delivery of user-centric GUIs and excellent User Experience
- Automatic annotation of data assets
- Data classification and clustering
- Prompt engineering for Generative AI
- Training Large Language Models (LLMs), such as GPT-4 and Llama 2
- Strong SQL query skills
- Project management
- Producing academic publications of the highest standards
- Technical writing and reporting
- Professional experience in financial services
- Experience of commercial software development and deployment, including QA processes, deployment pipelines and automation
Main responsibilities:
- Elicit, capture and document user, technical and business requirements.
- Ensure required data is in appropriate structure.
- Manage commercial sensitivity and technical security so that only the permitted data/information is provided to a specific conversation.
- Identify, manage and eliminate LLM 'hallucination' to reach zero error rate from the LLM.
- Development of a great user experience.
- Implement effective Cyber Security and data protection controls.
- Recommend and manage access to appropriate computational power/data storage.
- Take account of Phoebus Software user requirements in terms of service quality, and the need to ensure accuracy and consistency in the delivery of the ISP.
Personal attributes:
- Strong interpersonal skills.
- Strong communication and presentation skills. The ability to work within a cross-disciplinary project team.
- Leadership and maturity of communication and organisation skills to deliver the KTP project and ensure it achieves agreed milestones and objectives.
- Ability to work independently and use initiative.
- Strong desire to pursue innovative approaches and strategies.
- Ability to work closely with all stakeholders and establish an effective knowledge transfer process in the company.
Additional Benefits and support:
Career prospects:
60% of our KTP associates are being offered employment by the companies at the end of the KTP.
KTP's are a proven springboard for Associates who wish to develop careers in consultancy, change management, operations or as University academics.
This is aKnowledge Transfer Partnership(KTP) funded by Phoebus Software and Innovate UK .
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) are collaborative, three-way partnerships creating positive impact and driving innovation by linking various businesses with the UK's world class knowledge bases to deliver innovation projects led by skilled graduates.
It is essential you understand how KTP works and the vital role you will play if you secure this position. To learn more please visit:www.aston.ac.uk/ktp
Aston University: You will work in a project team with Dr Philip Weber and Prof Abdul Sadka from Aston University and the Senior Management Team at Phoebus Software with further support of the IUK's Knowledge Transfer Adviser.
Location:You will be working in a hybrid environment, with at least 2 days at Phoebus Software in Solihull. You will also have access to facilities at Aston University in central Birmingham. Some travel to key clients may also be required.
For informal enquiries about this role please contact Dr Philip Weber, e-mail:
If you think this isn't the right opportunity for you, please explore other KTP vacancies across the country:https://www.ktp-uk.org/jobs/
Aston University is committed to the principles of the Athena SWAN Charterhttp://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charter-marks/athena-swan. We pride ourselves on our vibrant, friendly, supportive working environment and collaborative atmosphere.
Please visit our websitehttps://jobs.aston.ac.uk/Vacancies.aspxfor further information and to apply online.
As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy.
This role is likely to meet the criteria for endorsement under the 'Endorsed Funder' route of the Global Talent visa. The Global Talent visa route is available for talented and promising academics, researchers and specialists who are working in the fields of science, engineering, medicine, the social sciences or the humanities. Please see the published Home Office guidance:https://www.gov.uk/global-talent.
Further details:
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