AI Engineer/Data Scientist - KTP Associate - W & G Baird Ltd

About the job:

Through the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Programme, W & G Baird Ltd in partnership with Queen’s University Belfast have an exciting employment opportunity for an innovative and motivated AI in Business/ Computer Science/Business Analytics/Data Science/Software Engineering graduate/postgraduate to work on a project to design and implement an AI-enabled workflow automation platform that helps customers find, brief and order print work, while streamlining estimating, order intake, proofing and production scheduling. This role is company-based and will be delivered in collaboration with Queen’s Business School.

W & G Baird Ltd is a long-established, forward-looking commercial printing and finishing business, combining deep craft expertise with modern litho and digital capability. We produce high quality educational books (including large-scale schoolbook programmes), magazines, brochures, catalogues and large-format print, supporting customers across the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe. Our reputation has been built on reliability, quality and service over more than 160 years, and we continue to invest in the people, processes and technology required to compete in a demanding and fast-moving market.

This KTP is a key part of our next phase of development: using workflow automation, data and AI to reduce friction for customers and improve speed, insight and performance across the end-to-end journey—from enquiry and estimating through order capture, proofing and production scheduling. The successful candidate will join a committed team and work with real operational data and real customer challenges, with the support of Queen’s University Belfast, to deliver practical improvements that will be embedded into how we operate day to day. This is a hands-on role with clear ownership, visible impact and strong development potential.

Information about the company partner can be found at: https://www.wgbaird.com/

About the person:

The successful candidate must have, and your application should clearly demonstrate that you meet the following criteria:

• Hold at least a 2.1 Honours Degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science, Business Analytics, Data Science, Software Engineering, Industrial Engineering or a closely related discipline.
  • Where candidates hold an international degree, they must ensure the equivalence of this to a UK classification (i.e. 1st, 2.1, 2.2 etc) is clear in their application.
• Relevant practical experience with data analysis and automation (such as Python/SQL/n8n workflows), including building and evaluating ML/optimisation models or rules-based pipelines.*
• Relevant working knowledge of applied AI in business workflows, ideally including NLP (for conversational interfaces) and/or document understanding (classification and data extraction)*
• Demonstrable ability to map end-to-end processes, elicit requirements from non-technical stakeholders, and translate user needs into robust technical designs, test plans and KPIs.
• Demonstrable ability and experience in stakeholder management, with strong communication and presentation skills and the ability to work across sales, administration and production teams.
• Completion of a relevant research project or student placement.

*may be demonstrated through the completion of a module, student project or placement.

Please note the above are not an exhaustive list.

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