Software Development Engineer

About the role

The Physical Network Inventory team is responsible for maintaining the critical inventory systems used to plan, design, and build the Openreach network. These systems have played a key role in supporting Openreach's nationwide full fibre rollout across the UK. In this role, you will contribute to the design, development, and support of AI-powered solutions, including copilots, intelligent automation tools, and workflow systems that enhance engineering productivity, streamline operations, and deliver improved business outcomes.

What you'll be doing

AI Development & Implementation

• Design, develop, and deploy AI-powered agents and automation solutions.

• Build and maintain integrations between AI solutions and enterprise applications using APIs and microservices.

• Implement AI capabilities within the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) for platform applications.

• Leverage AI-assisted development tools such as Kiro, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Amazon Q to improve productivity and code quality.

• Develop agent-based workflows that automate routine tasks and enhance decision-making processes.

Architecture & Design

• Contribute to the design and implementation of scalable AI solution architectures.

• Develop and maintain reusable prompt templates and prompt engineering patterns.

• Apply AI design patterns such as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), ReAct, Prompt Chaining, and Planner-Executor workflows.

• Integrate AI solutions with existing applications, data sources, and business processes.

• Manage context and memory within AI applications to improve user experience and solution effectiveness.

Solution Development

• Develop AI-enabled services using Large Language Models (LLMs) and supporting technologies.

• Build and maintain APIs and services that enable AI agents to interact with internal and external systems.

• Create agentic workflows to automate operational tasks and business processes.

AI Evaluation & Continuous Improvement

• Monitor and evaluate AI solution performance using defined metrics and benchmarks.

• Measure and improve solution accuracy, task success rates, response latency, runtime efficiency, and operational costs.

• Conduct prompt tuning, testing, experimentation, and performance analysis to improve AI outcomes.

Essential Skills / Experience

• 4-6 years of software engineering experience, including 2-3 years working with AI-enabled solutions.

• Strong understanding of prompt engineering and creating structured, reusable prompts.

• Knowledge of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) concepts and applications.

• Experience developing APIs and microservices.

• Understanding of Model Context Protocol (MCP) concepts.

• Knowledge of AI design patterns including ReAct, Planner-Executor, and Chain-of-Thought prompting.

• Proficiency in Python and/or Node.js.

• Experience with vector databases such as Pinecone, FAISS, or Azure AI Search.

• Experience with Azure AI Services or AWS Bedrock.

• Experience building APIs, integrating external services, and developing AI-powered applications.

• Experience with AI-native IDEs and modern AI development tools.

• Exposure to agent-based and workflow-driven AI solutions.

• Experience supporting or developing LLM-based applications and prompt engineering solutions.

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science Engineering, or related field.

About BT

BT is the UK's leading communications group and the holding company behind some of the country's most recognised brands – including BT, EE, Openreach and Plusnet. Our purpose is as simple as it is ambitious: we connect for good. Our customers include consumers, small, medium and large businesses, public sector organisations and other communications providers.

Joining BT means working at the heart of a business that matters to the UK, with the opportunity to shape decisions, influence outcomes and help set the future course of one of the country's most important companies.