Lead AI Research Engineer

Lead AI Research Engineer
Location: Hybrid/London
Salary: £100,000–£150,000 + benefits
Be the driving force behind the next generation of AI in education. A rare opportunity to shape the future.
We’re working with a global SaaS leader in education and workforce analytics, backed by major private equity investment and trusted by thousands of schools worldwide. They’re now building a dedicated AI R&D function, and this is your chance to join as the founding Lead AI Research Engineer.
If you’re looking for a role where you can explore, experiment, and deliver real impact at global scale, this is it.
What you’ll be doing
You’ll sit within a small, focused R&D team with a clear brief: build it, prove it, scale it. Working directly with the Global CTO and senior .NET engineering leaders, you’ll research, prototype, and deploy AI capability that will shape the company’s product ecosystem for years to come.
You will:

• Identify high-impact opportunities to embed AI, ML, and agentic systems across a global SaaS platform
  
• Build prototypes, MVPs, and proofs-of-concept using real production data
  
• Experiment with LLMs, automation frameworks, advanced ML models, and emerging AI tooling
  
• Evaluate and integrate third-party APIs and open-source frameworks
  
• Develop reusable components and reference architectures
  
• Collaborate with partners including Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and others
  
• Share knowledge, mentor engineers, and help embed AI-first thinking across teams
  This isn’t a research-paper role. It’s hands-on, practical, and focused on delivering solutions that work in the real world.
  What we’re looking for
  You enjoy exploring new ideas just as much as you enjoy building working systems. You’re curious, practical, and excited by the chance to create impact.
  You may come from:
  Academic routes
  
• PhD or research background in AI, ML, or Computer Science
  
• Ready to apply deep expertise in a commercial SaaS setting
  Industry routes
  
• Senior or Lead Data/AI Engineer with strong applied experience
  
• Comfortable shipping AI features or automation products
  Essential skills:
  
• Strong experience with Machine Learning, LLMs, NLP and Data Science
  
• Proven track record of building and deploying AI models (Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch, LangChain)
  
• Hands-on with cloud platforms (preferably Azure, or AWS, GCP)
  
• Good understanding of APIs, microservices, and data pipelines
  
• Able to prototype quickly and communicate findings clearly
  Why this role matters
  This is a career-defining opportunity to help shape the future of AI in education. The solutions you build will reach thousands of schools and millions of learners, improving teaching, learning, and outcomes at a global level.
  You’ll also play a key role in guiding the organisation toward an AI-first mindset, influencing strategy, engineering direction, and long-term capability.
  If you want a role where your work genuinely makes a difference, you’ll feel right at home here.
  Interested? Let’s talk.
  If this sounds like the kind of challenge you’ve been waiting for, apply today