{"id":1645528,"url":"https://alion.io/job/alten-ai-research-lead","title":"AI Research Lead","company":{"id":52934,"name":"ALTEN","domain":"alten.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/alten-com","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"staffing","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"SmartRecruiters","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":78,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.987,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":27,"computed_at":"2026-10-24T06:02:35Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Derby, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":89000,"max_usd":164000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":25},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Azure AKS","optional":false},{"name":"CLIP","optional":false},{"name":"Computer Vision","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"Llama","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Mistral","optional":false},{"name":"Multimodal AI","optional":false},{"name":"Prompt Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"VLM","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":true},{"name":"Covenant","optional":true},{"name":"Knowledge Graph","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-01T16:07:23Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-01","last_verified_at":"2026-10-24T08:42:03Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":22,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":22},"description":"ALTEN is a global engineering and technology consultancy operating across over 35 countries worldwide. We partner with industry leaders across sectors including Aeronautics, Aerospace, Defence, Naval, Automotive, Energy, Rail, IT and many more to deliver innovative engineering solutions that drive technological advancement & support sustainable transformation.\nOur teams of passionate and agile engineers work on cutting-edge projects that shape the future of technology and sustainability. At ALTEN, we empower talented engineers to innovate, solve complex challenges, and deliver impactful solutions that build tomorrow’s world-today.\nJoin us and start building tomorrow’s world today!\n We are seeking an experienced AI Research Lead to drive the research, development, and deployment of next-generation AI solutions, with a particular focus on Large Language Models (LLMs), Vision Language Models (VLMs), Computer Vision, and Multimodal AI systems.\nThis role is ideal for a highly technical professional who can bridge cutting-edge research and production engineering, translating innovative concepts into scalable, real-world solutions. You will lead AI initiatives, design experimentation frameworks, and provide technical leadership across multimodal AI projects.\nKey Responsibilities:\nLead research and development activities across LLM, VLM, and multimodal AI domains.\nDesign, implement, and evaluate AI models incorporating text, image, and multimodal reasoning capabilities.\nDevelop and optimise Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures.\nDrive experimentation, model evaluation, benchmarking, and validation activities.\nFine-tune and adapt foundation models for business-specific use cases.\nCollaborate with engineering teams to transition research outputs into production-ready systems.\nDefine AI system architectures leveraging cloud-native and distributed computing environments.\nProvide technical leadership and mentorship to AI engineers and researchers.\nStay current with the latest academic and industry advancements in AI and machine learning.\n Required Skills:\nAI & Multimodal Systems\nExpertise with Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT, Llama, Mistral, or equivalent.\nExperience with Vision Language Models (VLMs) including CLIP, BLIP, and related multimodal architectures.\nStrong understanding of prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and model optimisation.\nExperience designing and implementing RAG pipelines.\nDeep knowledge of multimodal AI, vision-language fusion, and reasoning systems.\nExperience evaluating model performance, robustness, and safety.\nSoftware Engineering\nAdvanced Python development skills.\nExperience building scalable AI services and APIs.\nStrong backend development and integration experience.\nKnowledge of software engineering best practices and MLOps workflows.\nCloud & Infrastructure\nExperience with Microsoft Azure (preferred), AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.\nContainerisation using Docker.\nOrchestration using Kubernetes and/or Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).\nExperience designing microservices-based and distributed architectures.\nResearch & Innovation Capabilities\nExpertise in experiment design and scientific evaluation methodologies.\nAbility to rapidly prototype, test, and validate AI concepts.\nStrong analytical and problem-solving skills.\nProven ability to transform research findings into production-grade solutions.\nPassion for innovation and emerging AI technologies.\nRequired Qualifications:\nA Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Engineering, or equivalent military experience or a degree in\nComputer Science\nArtificial Intelligence\nRobotics\nElectrical & Electronic Engineering\nRelated STEM discipline\nDesirable Skills:\nGenerative AI product development.\nComputer Vision and image understanding systems.\nAI agent frameworks and autonomous workflows.\nKnowledge graphs and semantic retrieval systems.\nMLOps and model deployment pipelines.\nTeam leadership or technical management experience.\n Why join us?\nWe bring together entrepreneurial, tech-driven people to deliver innovative solutions for leading companies.\nAt ALTEN, you’ll work on exciting projects, supported by ongoing learning, mentoring, and clear career development tailored to your goals.\nJoin a passionate team and help build tomorrow, today.\nIn short you get:\nA personalised career path and a rewarding management style \nA huge diversity of engineering projects and industries\nPrivate Medical Insurance\nCycle & Tech Scheme \nEmployee assistance programme\nLife insurance & Pension Scheme\nSocial atmosphere, regular gatherings & team buildings\nFlexible way of working (role dependent)\nWe are proud to support the Armed Forces Covenant & actively encourage applications from members of the Armed Forces community, including veterans, reservists, service leavers, and military spouses/partners. We recognise the value of military skills and experience and are committed to ensuring that no applicant is unfairly disadvantaged during our recruitment and selection processes. \nALTEN is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace and values the strength that comes from a global mix of backgrounds and perspectives. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates, regardless of background or protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know. \nThis role may require you to have or be willing to go through Security Clearance. As part of the onboarding process candidates will be asked to complete a Baseline Personnel Security Standard; details of the evidence required to apply may be found on the government website Gov.UK. If you are unable to meet this and any associated criteria, then your employment may be delayed, or rejected . Details of this will be discussed with you at interview.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5848,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Health insurance","Life insurance","Military spouse friendly"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["IT Consulting & Digital Transformation","Engineering Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-01T23:30:11Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Senior or Specialist Worker, Skilled Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker; Skilled Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-24T06:24:00+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":43,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.58,"p_room":0.75,"age_days":22,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:late","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-24T06:02:35Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/alten-ai-research-lead","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/alten-ai-research-lead.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-24T12:38:00Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":18202,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-25T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":52934},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=52934"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Falten-ai-research-lead"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Falten-ai-research-lead"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Falten-ai-research-lead"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/alten-ai-research-lead\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Falten-ai-research-lead"}]}