Backend Developer – AI Team Salary: DOE Location: Manchester/Hybrid Backend Developer – Fletchers Solicitors AI
Office Location: This role can be primarily remote, with in-person meeting around once per month in Manchester or Liverpool. Fletchers have offices in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Bolton, Southport, Newcastle, Reading, Birmingham, Northampton, and Cambridge.
Overview:
We are looking for a Backend Developer to join our expanding AI team at Fletchers Solicitors. This role sits within a fast‑paced, high‑autonomy environment where we are rapidly prototyping, iterating, and deploying state‑of‑the‑art AI products for use across Fletchers and the wider legal sector. The team operates as a start‑up‑style unit within the wider business, reporting directly to the executive team, with a clear mandate to move quickly from idea to production.
You will be responsible for building and maintaining the backend systems and web applications that support the development, testing, deployment, and scaling of our Machine Learning and Large Language Model‑based tools, and for helping to transform these into robust, market‑ready products. We have ambitious plans to grow the AI team significantly over the next few years as we expand our internal capabilities and commercialise our technology externally. About Fletchers Solicitors & the AI/ Data Science Team.
Fletchers is a rapidly growing consumer law firm specialising in personal injury and clinical negligence, and with a growing practice in family and private client. Fletchers was one of the first consumer law firms to deploy a machine learning tool for legal work (a decision support system for screening incoming cases, launched in 2017) and was one of, or the first, law firm to have a dedicated AI department, which started in August 2023. Since then, we have been experimenting with a broader range of ML techniques, extending those tools already in use, and productionising new ones through our growing data science & engineering teams.
We believe that we are well positioned to leverage Fletchers’ unique legal-medical dataset and industry expertise to build AI tools that will shape the future of consumer law. We are well funded through our Private Equity backers, which allows us to invest heavily in the development of sector-specific AI tools that assist, automate, and augment our specialist legal work. Tools we have built range from simple behind-the-scenes custom model inference, to agentic-AI pipelines for ‘always on’ monitoring;, to the core user interface that some of our colleagues work on for 90%+ of their day. We’re also commercialising these tools so that other specialist law firms can leverage Fletchers legal and AI expertise, and have an ambitious agenda for external growth for the next 18 months.
Fletchers is headquartered in the North-West of the UK, with offices in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Southport, Bolton, Cambridge, Reading, Birmingham, Northampton, and Newcastle. Many colleagues work primarily from home. The existing AI team is distributed across London, Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge, and Bristol, and we typically meet in person once or twice per month in Manchester. As a Backend Developer within the AI team, you will support the design, development, and ongoing evolution of our core backend services, APIs, and data processing pipelines. You will play a key role in enabling rapid experimentation while ensuring that successful prototypes can be hardened and scaled into production‑grade systems.
This is a role suited to someone who is comfortable operating with a high degree of independence, taking ownership of systems end‑to‑end, and making pragmatic engineering decisions in a fast‑moving environment. You will work closely with data scientists, product stakeholders, infrastructure engineers, and frontend developers across multiple projects in parallel.
We are open to candidates ranging from mid to senior level. The scope of responsibilities can flex depending on experience and interests, with clear opportunities for rapid progression and significant professional growth for motivated candidates as the team and product portfolio grow. : Take ownership of backend services and applications that support the development, testing, deployment, and monitoring of ML‑enabled products
Contribute to infrastructure and architecture decisions by developing a strong understanding of business and product needs
Maintain and extend existing, and build new APIs to support evolving product requirements
Collaborate closely with product, data science, infrastructure, and frontend teams to deliver end‑to‑end solutions
Work directly with internal users and stakeholders to scope, prioritise, and resolve issues and bugs
Enable ML development through efficient and scalable data integrations from diverse sources, including case management systems, unstructured documents (Word, PDF), and SQL databases Essential Skills and Experience: Strong proficiency in Python, with experience designing and building backend systems and web apps (proficiency with at least one Python web framework is desirable)
Comfort operating in a fast‑paced production environment where deployments have direct user impact
3+ years experience as a software developer, backend engineer, or Python developer. Strong candidates with less should still apply
Ability to work independently with minimal supervision, demonstrating strong ownership, prioritisation, and delivery focus
Strong communication skills and sound engineering judgement
Based in the UK, with the ability to attend in‑person team meetings approximately once per month
Fluency in English Desirable Skills and Experience: Experience designing and deploying infrastructure (e.g. cloud environments, containers, CI/CD pipelines, secure networking, or databases)
Start‑up or greenfield experience, particularly building backend systems or data environments from scratch
Experience operating with solutions at scale
‘Product engineer’ experience
Exposure to frontend technologies (e.g. TypeScript, React)
Previous experience with Azure
Familiarity with Machine Learning concepts and workflows In return Fletchers offers: 35 hours working week
Bonus scheme (subject to targets being met)
35 days holiday a year including bank holidays and Christmas Closure, you also have an option to purchase up to 3 extra days’ holiday per year, until you long service award the 3 days after your 5th, 7th, and 9th full year of employment
Pension scheme with tax-efficient salary sacrifice option
Life Assurance Policy
Medicash policy to cover some dental, optical and other medical expenses
Company sick pay
Enhanced Maternity, Paternity and IVF schemes
Flexible, agile working environment with a positive work-life balance
Varied calendar of funded company social events (check out Fletchers Group on LinkedIn)
Monthly voucher awardsfor winning nominees
A genuinely supportive and friendly culture
Ongoing training and professional development opportunities We reserve the right to close this role before the date specified depending on the calibre and volume of candidates.
About Fletchers Group
Fletchers is a fast-growing, dynamic law firm specialising in personal injury and clinical negligence law, with outstanding rankings in both The Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners. Following several strategic acquisitions, we’ve evolved into the Fletchers Group, with ambitious plans for continued growth and innovation. We aspire to be the best place to work in the legal sector.
Our workplace culture is inclusive, informal, and supportive, with a strong focus on colleague wellbeing and happiness. We are proud to offer some of the best hybrid and flexible working arrangements in the industry — because we understand that balance drives performance.
At Fletchers, we also value connection and collaboration. We create exciting opportunities for teams to come together and thrive. Whether you’re starting your career or aiming for leadership, you’ll find a clear path to progress and development here — from apprenticeships and professional qualifications to senior roles and Partnership.
We seek out a broad range of challenging, high-quality legal work, enabling our people to build meaningful and progressive careers. And we don’t just talk about development — we invest in it, with a significant proportion of our colleagues working towards relevant qualifications at any given time.
We reward those who help build our success and live our values. Our benefits package is designed to grow with you, offering real opportunities to share in our long-term strength. Our base pay and bonus structure is built to recognise and reward high performance.
Join us and be part of a law firm that’s not only growing, but redefining what it means to work in legal services.
Fletchers Group is an inclusive employer with a diverse workforce: we welcome applications from any and all backgrounds. We’re committed to providing a culture and environment where everyone can thrive, understanding and celebrating that no colleague is the same. We’re proud of our work on the Disability Confident scheme, signed up to BITC’s Race at Work charter, and working towards Henpicked’s Menopause and Menstrual Friendly accreditations.
Location: Manchester/Hybrid Salary: DOE Department: AI Closing Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2026
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