Team Lead (AI & ML) (SPPP-3)

About This Job

The Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (PERA), set up under the Punjab Enforcement and Regulation Act, 2024, has invited applications from qualified, experienced and competent professionals for contract positions under its 2026 regulations for contractual employees. Appointments are on the Special PERA Pay Package (SPPP), which the advertisement describes as negotiable, initially for three years and extendable subject to satisfactory performance. This listing is for 1 post of Team Lead (AI & ML) on SPPP-3, at the Directorate General of PERA in Lahore. The role's responsibilities include the following: local LLM Infrastructure & Hardware; design and procure GPU hardware specifications for the PERA on-premises AI data center (NVIDIA A100/H100 or equivalent); install, configure, and maintain the full local AI stack — CUDA, cuDNN, drivers, and inference runtimes (Ollama, vLLM, llama.cpp); deploy and manage open-source foundation models (LLaMA 3, Mistral, Qwen, or equivalent) entirely on local hardware; implement model quantization (GGUF, GPTQ, AWQ) for efficient inference within available GPU VRAM constraints; ensure zero data egress — all model inference, training data, and embeddings remain on PERA servers; RAG System & Knowledge Base; and design and implement a production-grade Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline using LangChain or LlamaIndex.

Candidates need the following qualification: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Data Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent from a recognized university. On experience, the requirement is: Minimum 08 years of hands-on machine learning and AI development experience. Experience in government, law enforcement, or regulated-industry AI projects is strongly preferred. Experience in private entities is accepted if the entity is registered with the SECP, the Registrar of Firms or another regulatory authority. The Punjab Job Portal sets the age range for this post at 25 to 60 years, a Punjab domicile is required, and both men and women may apply. The authority is also looking for demonstrated experience deploying and serving LLMs locally (not just API-based usage); proven experience building and productionizing RAG pipelines; hands-on experience with computer vision and/or audio/speech ML models; deep intellectual curiosity — stays current with rapidly evolving LLM and AI research; and strong systems thinking — able to design end-to-end AI pipelines from data ingestion to prediction delivery.

Only online applications submitted through the Punjab Job Portal at jobs.punjab.gov.pk, with all educational, experience and other relevant documents uploaded, will be entertained, and incomplete applications will not be considered. Full job descriptions and terms of service are available on the PERA website, pera.punjab.gov.pk. The last date to apply is 29 October 2026, and no application fee is mentioned. Only shortlisted candidates will be called for a test or interview, and no TA/DA will be paid. Government employees must apply through proper channel and bring a No Objection Certificate from their parent department to the interview. Selected candidates will receive provisional offer letters subject to verification of their documents and antecedents, and canvassing or false documents will lead to disqualification. The appointing authority may change the number of posts or cancel the process at any stage.

Job Information

Commission / Board

Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (PERA)

Place of posting

Directorate General of PERA, Lahore

City

Lahore

Postal Code

54000

Domicile

Punjab

Age (Male)

25–60 years

Age (Female)

25–60 years

Salary / BPS

SPPP-3 - Special PERA Pay Package (negotiable)

Contract duration

3 years (initially), extendable subject to satisfactory performance

Advt. date

14 October 2026

Last date

29 October 2026

Qualification Required

• Qualification: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Data Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent from a recognized university.
• Experience: Minimum 08 years of hands-on machine learning and AI development experience. Experience in government, law enforcement, or regulated-industry AI projects is strongly preferred.

Posts Breakdown

Test / Selection Process

Test / Interview

Important Dates

1. Advertisement Published14 October 2026
2. Last Date to Apply29 October 2026

How to Apply

1. Read the job description, minimum qualification, experience and terms and conditions of service at https://pera.punjab.gov.pk/.
2. Register or log in on the Punjab Job Portal (https://jobs.punjab.gov.pk/) and open the Team Lead (AI & ML) listing.
3. Fill in the online application and upload all educational, experience and other relevant documents on the portal; incomplete online applications will not be considered.
4. Submit the application online on or before 29th October 2026. Only online applications through the Punjab Job Portal are entertained.
5. Applicants serving in Government departments/organizations must apply through proper channel and produce a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from their parent department at the time of interview.

Additional Details

Pay Scale

SPPP-3 (Special PERA Pay Package, negotiable)

Competencies

Demonstrated experience deploying and serving LLMs locally (not just API-based usage); Proven experience building and productionizing RAG pipelines; Hands-on experience with computer vision and/or audio/speech ML models; Deep intellectual curiosity — stays current with rapidly evolving LLM and AI research; Strong systems thinking — able to design end-to-end AI pipelines from data ingestion to prediction delivery; Resilient problem-solver in resource-constrained on-premises environments (no cloud fallback); Strong communicator — able to translate complex AI capabilities into business outcomes for executives; Commitment to data sovereignty, privacy, and government compliance requirements; Collaborative and able to work across software, infrastructure, and operations teams

Degree Areas

Computer Engineering/Sciences, Information Technology, Data science, Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering

Contact Phone

042-99205900

Employer Note

Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (PERA), established under the Punjab Enforcement and Regulation Act, 2024.

Contact Address

Deputy Director (Admin. & HR) / Secretary CEC, PERA HQs, 1st Floor, Alfalah Building, Charing Cross, Mall Road, Lahore

Contact Website

www.pera.punjab.gov.pk

Experience Note

Experience in private entities shall be accepted if such entity is registered with SECP, Registrar of Firms or any other Public Sector Regulatory Authority.

Service Regulations

PERA (Appointment and Conditions of Service for Contractual Employees) Regulations, 2026

General Instructions

1. For details regarding job descriptions, minimum qualification, experience, and other terms and conditions of service, please visit https://pera.punjab.gov.pk/ 2. Only online applications submitted through the Punjab Job Portal (https://jobs.punjab.gov.pk/), along with all educational, experience, and other relevant documents duly uploaded on the Portal, shall be entertained. 3. Incomplete online applications shall not be considered. 4. No TA / DA shall be admissible for the test / interview. 5. Only shortlisted candidates shall be called for the test / interview. 6. The last date for submission of applications is 29th October 2026. 7. Applicants serving in Government departments / organizations who fulfil the prescribed criteria must apply through proper channel and they shall produce a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from their parent department / organization at the time of interview. 8. The Appointing Authority reserves the right to increase or decrease the number of posts, and to withhold, cancel, or annul the recruitment process against any or all posts, in whole or in part, at any stage, without assigning any reason. 9. Upon selection, candidates shall be issued provisional / conditional offer letters, subject to verification of all credentials, including academic documents, experience certificates, NOC, and antecedents. 10. Canvassing in any form, or submission of false / bogus documents or information, shall render the candidate liable to disqualification at any stage.

Job Responsibilities

Local LLM Infrastructure & Hardware; Design and procure GPU hardware specifications for the PERA on-premises AI data center (NVIDIA A100/H100 or equivalent); Install, configure, and maintain the full local AI stack — CUDA, cuDNN, drivers, and inference runtimes (Ollama, vLLM, llama.cpp); Deploy and manage open-source foundation models (LLaMA 3, Mistral, Qwen, or equivalent) entirely on local hardware; Implement model quantization (GGUF, GPTQ, AWQ) for efficient inference within available GPU VRAM constraints; Ensure zero data egress — all model inference, training data, and embeddings remain on PERA servers; RAG System & Knowledge Base; Design and implement a production-grade Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline using LangChain or LlamaIndex; Build a local vector database (Qdrant, ChromaDB, or Weaviate) to store embeddings of PERA documents, regulations, and operational data; Develop document ingestion pipelines supporting PDF, Word, structured DB data, and scanned documents (via OCR); Implement semantic search, hybrid search (dense + sparse), and re-ranking for accurate knowledge retrieval; Create a self-improving feedback loop where user interactions are used to refine retrieval and generation quality; Model Training, Fine-Tuning & Continuous Learning; Fine-tune foundation models on PERA-specific datasets using LoRA/QLoRA to adapt them to domain language (legal, enforcement, regulatory); Design data pipelines to collect, clean, label, and version-control training datasets from operational software logs and databases; Implement continuous model evaluation, A/B testing, and performance benchmarking (ROUGE, BLEU, F1, custom domain metrics); Maintain a Model Registry for versioning, rollback, and lifecycle management of all deployed models; AI APIs & Software Integration; Develop and expose AI capabilities as secure RESTful APIs (FastAPI / .NET Core) for consumption by FRMS, PERA360, HRMIS, and other platforms; APIs to deliver: natural language Q&A, document summarization, intelligent search, prediction outputs, and anomaly detection; Implement forecasting and analytics models (time-series, regression) for enforcement trends, inspection planning, and resource allocation; Ensure API versioning, authentication, rate limiting, and API documentation (Swagger/OpenAPI); Computer Vision & Object Detection; Deploy and fine-tune object detection models (YOLOv8/v10, RT-DETR) on PERA's GPU infrastructure for video-based surveillance; Build real-time and batch video analysis pipelines for detection of violations, unauthorized activities, and entity recognition; Integrate computer vision outputs with FRMS enforcement workflows via API hooks; Maintain model accuracy through periodic retraining on new annotated video datasets; Audio Intelligence — Transcription & Keyword Detection; Deploy local speech-to-text models (Whisper / WhisperX) supporting Urdu, Punjabi, and English for body-camera and call recordings; Build keyword spotting and flagging pipelines to detect specific phrases, commands, or compliance-relevant terms in audio streams; Develop speaker diarization capabilities to identify and separate multiple speakers in recordings; Integrate audio intelligence outputs into PERA360 officer accountability workflows; Data Management & Compliance; Design SQL Server schemas and data warehouses to store AI inference results, model outputs, and training metadata; Enforce strict data governance — classification, access control, audit logging, and retention policies; Ensure all AI pipelines comply with Government of Punjab data residency and cybersecurity requirements; Produce regular AI system performance reports for leadership and compliance documentation; Team Leadership; Lead and grow the AI/ML team; define roles, onboarding plans, and technical growth paths; Establish MLOps practices: experiment tracking (MLflow), model versioning, automated retraining pipelines; Collaborate with backend, frontend, and DevOps teams to embed AI features into production software; Produce technical documentation, architecture diagrams, and research summaries for stakeholder communication

Mandatory Technical Requirements

LLM & Foundation Models: LLaMA, Mistral, Qwen, or equivalent — hands-on local deployment experience; LLM Serving: Ollama, vLLM, llama.cpp, or TGI — inference optimization and quantization (GGUF/GPTQ/AWQ); RAG Frameworks: LangChain or LlamaIndex — end-to-end RAG pipeline implementation; Vector Databases: Qdrant, ChromaDB, Weaviate, or Milvus — production-scale embedding storage and retrieval; ML Frameworks: PyTorch, Hugging Face Transformers, PEFT (LoRA/QLoRA for fine-tuning); Computer Vision: YOLOv8/v10, OpenCV, ONNX Runtime — object detection and video analysis; Audio/Speech: OpenAI Whisper / WhisperX, pyannote-audio — transcription and diarization; MLOps: MLflow, DVC, or equivalent — experiment tracking, model registry, pipeline automation; GPU Infrastructure: CUDA/cuDNN, NVIDIA GPU administration, VRAM optimization; API Development: FastAPI (Python) or ASP.NET Core — for exposing AI services to existing software stacks; Database: Microsoft SQL Server — for storing model outputs, metadata, and AI-derived analytics; Languages: Python (primary), with working knowledge of C# for .NET integration; Docker & Containerization: GPU-enabled Docker (NVIDIA Container Toolkit), docker-compose; AI Productivity Tools: Claude, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent — mandatory daily usage

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