Senior AI Engineer | Federal Government | Canberra or Hobart

- 12-month contract plus extensions, up to 24 months total

- GenAI, LLMs, RAG and agents in production at national scale

- Hybrid after initial onsite period

Bitgrid Pty Ltd is seeking a Senior AI Engineer for a major Federal Government agency at the frontline of national service delivery. You’ll design, build and run AI solutions that serve millions of Australians.

The role

- Initial 12-month contract, with extensions up to 24 months in total

- Start date: December 2026

- EL1-equivalent level

- $130–$150 per hour (Pty Ltd/ABN contract)

- Onsite for the first 6 weeks, then hybrid working

- You must live within reasonable travel distance of the Canberra or Hobart office

What you’ll do

- Design, develop and deploy AI and machine learning solutions aligned to business outcomes

- Build Generative AI and LLM-based applications, including prompt engineering, RAG and embeddings

- Design and maintain custom AI agents: tool definitions, control flow, state and memory, retries, escalation and stopping conditions

- Take solutions from prototype and proof of concept through to production

- Implement MLOps/LLMOps practices: version control, testing, CI/CD, automated deployment and monitoring

- Evaluate models for accuracy, robustness, bias, hallucination and safety

- Monitor performance, drift, latency, cost and usage, and optimise accordingly

- Apply strong controls for AI security,



privacy and responsible AI, and contribute to AI governance and assurance

What you’ll bring

- 3+ years in AI/ML engineering with a track record of production delivery

- Robust Python and software engineering skills (SFIA Level 3 programming or above)

- Hands-on experience with LLMs, RAG, embeddings, agents and GenAI application patterns

- Experience integrating AI with enterprise systems and data platforms

- Experience with SAS, Teradata, Cloudera Machine Learning (CML) and/or Red Hat OpenShift is highly regarded

- An advanced degree in computer science, statistics, mathematics or a related field is desirable

Security clearance
Australian citizens only. An existing clearance is not required, but you must be able to obtain and maintain a Baseline security clearance. This generally requires Australian citizenship. If you already hold a clearance, please mention it.

How to apply
Click Apply and attach your CV. In a short cover note, please include:

- Your current location and availability for a December start

- Your expected hourly rate

- Whether you hold a current clearance

- Whether you’ve been submitted for a similar Federal Government Senior AI Engineer role in the last two weeks. The client only accepts each candidate from one supplier.

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted promptly. Applications close Monday 26 October 2026 so we can prepare submissions in time.

📌 Senior AI Engineer | GenAI & LLMs | Federal Government (Canberra)
🏢 Bitgrid
📍 Canberra