AI Software Engineer (KTP Associate)

Pneuma Healthcare Ltd in partnership with Ulster University, has established a 2-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Project and is offering an exciting opportunity for an ambitious and highly motivated Computing / AI graduate to work as a KTP Associate to oversee the development of a CAISA — an innovative, AI-powered training platform designed to support mental health practitioners through realistic, voice-based simulated therapy sessions.

Job Purpose

As an AI Software Engineer, you will play a key role in the development of CAISA—an innovative, AI-powered training platform designed to support mental health practitioners through realistic, voice-based simulated therapy sessions. Leveraging the latest advancements in generative artificial intelligence, you will collaborate within a multidisciplinary team to build a scalable, high-fidelity role-play simulation framework. Your work will directly contribute to improved training outcomes, enhanced service delivery, and the development of a sustainable pipeline of skilled digital mental health professionals. You will be responsible for the full software development lifecycle—including system design, implementation, testing, deployment, and user training—while also contributing to project reporting and informing the strategic business roadmap.

Main Duties

1. Strategic Planning & Project Oversight – Refine project goals, success criteria, and key performance indicators. Conduct market and capability analyses to inform strategic direction. Adhere to day-today project timelines and report across the multidisciplinary team.
2. Stakeholder Engagement & Requirements Engineering – Engage key stakeholders to gather insights, translate user needs into functional and non-functional requirements and prepare technical specifications.
3. Software Architecture, Prototyping & Development – Design system architecture and identify suitable technologies. Develop and iterate on prototypes, implementing key platform features, including voice interaction modules and AI-driven components.
4. Testing, Quality Assurance & User-Centered Design – Plan and execute internal testing and pilot deployments. Collect and evaluate user feedback through usability testing, iterating to improve functionality and experience.
5. Deployment, Training & Support – Deliver a final system, develop training materials, and support onboarding of company stakeholder to ensure successful use of the platform.
6. Reporting, Compliance & Risk Management – Contribute to the preparation of progress reports for the project funder, and ensure adherence to relevant regulations, including data protection and ethical standards.

The selection process will also require candidates to complete an unseen technical task on the day of the interview.

Qualifications

Applicants should hold an honours degree in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Computing Engineering, or a closely related discipline at 2:1 or above.

The Associate should have good skills and experience in three or more of the following areas:

• Strong proficiency in a variety of programming languages, with the ability to adapt to different paradigms and technologies as needed (e.g., Python, Java, JavaScript, HTML/CSS)
• Knowledge of advanced computing topics e.g. Large Language Models, Blockchain, AI, ML, etc.
• Proven experience conducting data analytics and AI projects, preferably with a health-related focus.
• Evidence of having designed and conducted experiments to test hypotheses and validate AI models, contributing to rapid prototyping and iterative development.

Benefits

This KTP project provides a unique opportunity to apply your knowledge and skills to a real industry challenge whilst benefitting from industrial and academic supervision and mentoring from an Ulster University’s experts Dr Mark Donnelly, Dr Jorge Martinez, Dr Orla McDevitt-Petrovic, Professor Michael McTear and Professor Raymond Bond who will enhance your technical expertise in co-creation, end-to-end software development and the latest developments in Generative AI. As a KTP Associate, you will also acquire new skills in strategic leadership that can help to super-charge your career. Additional benefits include:

• Generous £11.9k Training, Development, equipment & Travel Budget dedicated to project delivery, which include but not limited to trainings and courses to enhance research skills as well as for critical networking with key players in the field, specific project equipment etc.
• FREE formal management training and development
• FREE University postgraduate study opportunity including 2 years of part time PhD study if appropriate
• 10% Associate development time built into work plan
• Opportunity to work with academics to develop scientific articles to be published in peer-reviewed, world-class academic journals
• Competitive salary
• Enhanced skills and experience that are marketable and highly transferable
• KTPs accelerate careers

Further information can be found in the Candidate Briefing Document.

The appointment will be for a period of two years and although the post is administratively linked to the University, the Associate will be based at the in Pnuema Healthcare’s premises at Ulster University’s Derry/Londonderry Campus, BT48 7JL. Successful completion of the KTP may lead to a new position within the company partner at the end of the project period.

Both Pneuma Healthcare Ltd and Ulster University are Equal Opportunities employers.

This KTP will focus leveraging the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, developing bespoke LLMs by employing advanced prompt engineering, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and fine-tuning to simulate realistic clinical role-play scenarios, based on proprietary role-play datasets owned by Pneuma Healthcare, underpinned by in-house domain-specific expertise. Working within a multidisciplinary team, the KTP will build a scalable, high-fidelity role-play simulation framework, which will directly contribute to improved training outcomes, enhanced service delivery, and the development of a sustainable pipeline of skilled digital mental health professionals. The KTP Associate will be expected to possess strong skills across the full software development lifecycle—including system design, implementation, testing, deployment, and user training—as well a strong verbal and written communication skills toward contributing to project reporting and informing the strategic business roadmap.