Technical Lead, Machine Learning

Technical Lead, Machine Learning

Permanent | £180,000 Base Salary + Meaningful Equity

London / Remote

The Opportunity to Build Something Defining

Most AI roles involve improving existing systems.

This opportunity is about creating them.

We're partnering with a heavily funded AI venture on a mission to build a next-generation intelligent assistant capable of helping users manage conversations, workflows, tasks, and real-world actions with minimal prompting.

The company has committed significant investment to building a world-class organisation and is embarking on a major hiring programme, creating a rare opportunity for exceptional engineers to join at a stage where their impact will be both immediate and lasting.

As Technical Lead, Machine Learning, you won't be inheriting legacy systems or maintaining someone else's architecture. You'll help define the foundations of the platform itself-shaping how the product reasons, remembers, plans, and executes tasks on behalf of users.

This is a role for someone who wants to build category-defining technology rather than incremental improvements.

Why This Role Stands Out

Most senior ML opportunities offer scale.

Few offer ownership.

Here, you'll have the opportunity to

• Define the machine learning architecture that powers the entire product.
• Influence technical strategy at the highest level.
• Build systems from first principles rather than work within established constraints.
• Solve some of the hardest challenges in AI, including memory, reasoning, reliability, and real-world task execution.
• Work alongside a small team of exceptional engineers, researchers, and builders.
• See your work directly influence the product experience for millions of future users.

For ambitious engineers who enjoy solving difficult problems and having a visible impact, opportunities like this are rare.

What You'll Own

You will lead the design, development, and operation of the company's core ML systems, including:

Machine Learning Infrastructure

• End-to-end training pipelines
• Evaluation and benchmarking frameworks
• Production inference architecture
• Monitoring, observability, and performance systems
• Deployment and scaling infrastructure

Large Language Models

• Fine-tuning foundation models using:
• LoRA
• QLoRA
• SFT
• DPO
• Distillation
• Improving model reliability and reasoning capabilities
• Building systems that move beyond simple chat applications into real-world task execution

Production AI Systems

• GPU optimisation and infrastructure efficiency
• Low-latency inference systems
• Scalability and reliability engineering
• Cost and performance optimisation
• AI safety and evaluation frameworks

Technical Leadership

• Drive architectural decisions across the ML platform
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering teams
• Mentor and influence other engineers
• Establish technical standards and best practices

Who We're Looking For

We're interested in exceptional builders who have demonstrated the ability to take ideas from concept to production.

You may currently be a

• Technical Lead, Machine Learning
• Staff Machine Learning Engineer
• Principal Machine Learning Engineer
• Founding AI Engineer
• Founding ML Engineer
• Research Engineer
• Lead AI Engineer
• Early employee at a high-growth AI startup

Ideal Experience

• Strong Python software engineering skills
• Expertise with PyTorch and/or JAX
• Experience deploying machine learning systems into production
• Deep knowledge of LLMs and Generative AI
• Hands-on experience with LoRA, QLoRA, DPO, RLHF, SFT, or related techniques
• Experience building inference platforms and ML infrastructure
• Strong understanding of scalability, reliability, and performance optimisation
• Previous startup or high-growth environment experience is highly desirable

The Person

The successful candidate will likely be someone who

• Enjoys building from zero to one
• Thrives in high-autonomy environments
• Takes ownership of outcomes, not just tasks
• Makes pragmatic decisions and executes quickly
• Balances innovation with engineering discipline
• Wants to work on problems that genuinely push the boundaries of applied AI

Package

Permanent Position

• £180,000 base salary
• Meaningful equity participation
• Significant ownership from day one
• Direct influence over product and technical direction
• Flexible working environment
• Opportunity to help build a globally impactful AI company

Interested?

If you're excited by the idea of building the intelligence layer behind a next-generation AI platform-and want the opportunity to help shape both the technology and the future of the company-we'd love to speak with you.

Apply now for a confidential discussion.