Lead AI Research Engineer

Job Title: Lead AI Research Engineer

Location: Essex (Hybrid)

Salary: £85,000 pa + bonus

Introduction:

A global defence & security contractor are expanding their AI research team and are looking for a Lead AI Technologist to help lead the team, researching and developing novel AI/ML technologies. You'll lead projects spanning reinforcement learning, NLP, computer vision, and signal processing, while mentoring teams and shaping partnerships with academic and industry leaders.

Responsibilities:

• Lead delivery of large-scale AI/ML projects and ensure high technical standards
• Provide technical assurance for proposals, reports, and project outputs
• Identify and direct research opportunities, including collaboration with universities and industry partners
• Present research findings to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Mentor and guide junior engineers and researchers

Key Skills/Experience:

Required:

• PhD in a relevant discipline
• ~10+ years in AI/ML (industry or academia)
• Proven team leadership experience
• Strong background in engineering assurance and technical review
• Proposal writing experience
• Strong communication and mentoring skills

Beneficial:

• Expertise in one or more of:
• AI/ML for imagery and remote sensing
• Reinforcement learning
• Natural Language Processing and Large Language Models
• Knowledge graphs and graph neural networks
• AI for RF, EW, radar, sonar, or acoustics
• Autonomy applications

If you are interested and think you have the skills required as a Lead AI Technologist, please don't hesitate to apply.