1 Senior AI Engineer

• RFQ type
• DMP2: ICT Labour Hire
• RFQ ID
• LH-07343
• RFQ published date
• Thursday, 30 July 2026
• Deadline for asking questions
• Thursday, 06 August 2026 • 11:59pm, Canberra time
• RFQ closing date
• Thursday, 13 August 2026 • 11:59pm, Canberra time
• Buyer
• Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
• Buyer contact
• No contact details reported. Please direct questions through the 'Question and Answers' portion of the RFQ process.
• Estimated start date
• Tuesday, 01 September 2026
• Initial contract duration
• 12 Months
• Extension term
• 12 months
• Number of extensions
• 2
• Maximum number of candidates per seller
• 2
• Experience level
• Senior - EL1 equivalent
• Location of work
• ACT
• Working arrangements
• Hybrid
• 
  
• This position is hybrid with 3 days in office and 2 days from home
• Maximum hours
• 40 hours per week
• Security clearance
• Must be able to obtain Negative Vetting Level 1

Job details

The AI Engineer will be responsible for designing, developing and implementing secure, scalable and governed AI solutions that support departmental business outcomes and cyber security objectives. The role will work closely with business stakeholders, cyber security teams, data specialists and architects to deliver AI-enabled services aligned to departmental AI governance requirements.

Key duties and responsibilities

Key Responsibilities:   Core Responsibilities Design, develop and deploy AI solutions using Azure AI services, and related Microsoft technologies. Build and maintain AI agents, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) solutions, workflow automation and intelligent business applications. Develop and enhance front-end experiences for AI solutions, creating intuitive and effective user interfaces that maximise adoption, usability and business value across departmental AI initiatives. Develop and maintain APIs, integrations and microservices to connect AI capabilities with departmental systems and external data sources. Design and implement vector search, document intelligence and data ingestion pipelines to support AI-powered business services. Conduct AI testing, evaluation and validation activities to assess solution accuracy, reliability, performance and effectiveness. Undertake AI assurance activities, including model evaluation, explainability, bias testing, prompt injection testing and adversarial assessments. Implement security, privacy and governance controls consistent with departmental AI policies, cyber security requirements and responsible AI principles. Support the registration, assessment and assurance of AI use cases in accordance with departmental AI governance processes. Develop and maintain technical documentation, operational procedures, architecture artefacts and knowledge transfer materials. Work collaboratively with business areas to identify, prioritise and deliver AI opportunities that improve productivity, decision-making and service delivery. Deliverables Production-ready AI and agentic solutions. AI integrations with departmental systems and data sources. AI governance and assurance artefacts. Technical designs, documentation and operational support procedures. AI evaluation, testing and performance reports. Knowledge transfer and capability uplift for internal teams.

 

Technical skills

1. AI Engineering (Core)

• Python (primary language) or JavaScript/TypeScript

• Azure OpenAI (prompt engineering, tool/function calling, RAG)

• Agent orchestration (Microsoft Agent Framework, LangChain or similar AI Agentic framework)

• GenAI evaluation frameworks (accuracy, hallucination, bias, etc)

• Red teaming of AI systems (adversarial testing, prompt injection, safety risks)

2. Backend and Integration

• API development (FastAPI, .NET or Node.js)

• Microservices and workflow orchestration

Additional services

Police Check

Criteria

The buyer has specified that each candidate must provide a one page pitch to address all criteria specified. This is equal to 5000 characters.Essential criteria

Weighting

• 1.
• Demonstrated experience designing, developing and deploying enterprise AI solutions using Microsoft technologies including Azure AI Foundry, Copilot Studio and AI Agents.
• Weighting:
• 30%
• 2.
• Demonstrated experience integrating AI solutions with enterprise systems, APIs, databases and business applications, including implementation of Retrieval Augmented Generation
• Weighting:
• 20%
• 3.
• Demonstrated understanding of AI governance, responsible AI, security, privacy and assurance requirements within a government or highly regulated environment.
• Weighting:
• 20%
• 4.
• Demonstrated ability to engage with stakeholders, translate business requirements into AI use cases and deliver business value through automation and AI-enabled solutions.
• Weighting:
• 15%
• 5.
• Demonstrated communication, documentation, knowledge transfer and collaborative working skills.
• Weighting:
• 15%

Contract

The buyer has chosen to use the simple contract for this procurement.

Questions and answers

No questions have been answered by the buyer.

Responding to this opportunity

For each candidate, you must include:

• start date
• hourly rate
• service management fee
• citizenship status
• security clearance
• one page pitch to address all criteria specified (this is equal to 5000 characters in BuyICT)
• resumés

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1. Deliverables

• Production-ready AI and agentic solutions.
• AI integrations with departmental systems and data sources.
• AI governance and assurance artefacts.
• Technical designs, documentation and operational support procedures.
• AI evaluation, testing and performance reports.
• Knowledge transfer and capability uplift for internal teams.

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