AI Research Lead – African First Language Models

Company: GSMA LLC
Apply for the AI Research Lead – African First Language Models
Location: London
Job Description:

About the role

You will guide the development of 3–5 Africa-first open language models end-to-end, acting as the technical anchor and coordinator across multiple model-building tracks. You will ensure alignment between researchers, operators, and partners, while driving high‑quality technical outcomes, documentation, and model readiness.

About you

You will bring demonstrable experience in developing and evaluating language models, with a strong grounding in NLP techniques relevant to African languages. You’ll be able to work across diverse linguistic structures—such as tonal variation, agglutination, rich morphology, and non‑standardised orthographies—to ensure that models reflect real‑world language use across the continent. Your ability to analyse datasets, identify representational gaps, and guide the creation of high‑quality corpora will directly shape the performance and inclusiveness of our Africa‑first models. You’ll be comfortable working end‑to‑end across the research workflow: from tokenisation strategies suitable for low resource languages, to training and finetuning multilingual models, to designing evaluation methods that capture linguistic nuance. You will apply your technical depth to help partners understand model behaviour, trade‑offs, and opportunities for improvement. You’ll communicate these insights clearly, helping a broad ecosystem—including operators, researchers, community groups, and developers—to collaborate effectively around open model development. You’ll be curious and adaptable, able to test new methods quickly while maintaining scientific rigour. Through structured documentation, reproducible experimentation, and responsible data practices, you’ll help ensure these open models meet the highest standards for transparency and reliability.

About your skills

  • Data Analysis – apply analytical rigour to evaluate datasets and model outputs, identifying linguistic patterns, bias risks, and areas for improving representation across African languages.
  • AI Research – explore and adapt advanced NLP techniques—including tokenisation, alignment, and evaluation methods—to address the challenges of low‑resource and morphologically rich languages.
  • Communication – translate complex technical concepts into clear, accessible explanations for partners across Africa, enabling shared understanding of modelling decisions and outcomes.
  • Delivery – drive research workstreams with structure and consistency, ensuring training runs, evaluations, documentation, and model releases are delivered to a high technical standard.
  • Stakeholder Management – collaborate confidently with researchers, operators, universities, and data communities, ensuring alignment on linguistic priorities, data quality, and model behaviour.

Contract type

Short term Contractor. Worker type: Contingent Worker.

What We Offer

  • Unparalleled access to the mobile industry.
  • Chance to shape the direction of mobile industry solutions.
  • Fast‑paced, rapidly evolving environment with global solutions and industry‑changing projects.
  • Architect‑designed offices and competitive compensation.
  • Learning and development opportunities.
  • Generous holiday allowances.
  • Four additional days off for professional development.
  • Additional benefits as part of the GSMA employment offer.

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Posted: June 1st, 2026