Senior Technical Lead

Lead Technologist – AI & Data Science

Chelmsford | Embedded Systems & AI | R&D | up to £90,000 Gross Per Annum

If your skills, experience, and qualifications match those in this job overview, do not delay your application.

Operating at the leading edge of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and data‑driven decision support, delivering complex solutions into safety‑critical and mission‑focused environments. Its teams work across long‑term R&D programmes, translating cutting‑edge research into deployable capability used by highly demanding customers.

The culture is strongly engineering‑led, research‑driven, and collaborative, with close links to academia and partner organisations. Individuals are trusted to shape technical direction, influence strategy, and contribute at both programme and enterprise level.

As a Lead Technologist, you will join a growing AI and Data Science capability and play a central role in leading technical delivery across large, complex AI programmes. You will provide technical direction, assurance, and mentorship while shaping research agendas that influence future capability.

You’ll guide multidisciplinary teams working across areas such as reinforcement learning, natural language processing, large language models, knowledge graphs, and AI applied to sensing domains including RF, electronic warfare, radar, sonar, acoustics, imagery, and remote sensing.

You will identify novel research opportunities, help establish partnerships with leading academic institutions, and direct research activities to ensure technical excellence and real‑world applicability. A key part of the role involves clearly articulating complex technical ideas to both specialist and non‑specialist audiences, including internal stakeholders and external customers.

You will also provide engineering assurance across bids, publications, and project outputs, raising quality and consistency by applying your experience and judgement. xwzovoh Mentoring and developing less‑experienced engineers and researchers will be central to your impact within the organisation.

Your background:

• PhD in a relevant technical discipline (e.g. AI, ML, data science, computer science, engineering, mathematics, or physics)
• Significant post‑doctoral experience (typically ~10+ years) applying AI / ML in industry or advanced research environments
• Proven experience leading R&D teams or technical workstreams on complex AI‑driven programmes
• Strong track record of engineering assurance, governance, or technical review of high‑impact outputs
• Experience leading or contributing to technical proposals, bids, or externally facing research material
• Ability to operate confidently at both deep technical and strategic levels, influencing direction and decision‑making
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to present complex research clearly to varied audiences

Desired:

Experience in one or more of the following technical domains:

• AI / ML for imagery and computer vision, including remote sensing
• Reinforcement learning
• Natural Language Processing and Large Language Models
• Knowledge graphs and graph‑based neural networks
• AI applied to RF, electronic warfare, radar, sonar, or acoustics
• Autonomy and intelligent systems