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!