Applied AI Engineer

Euro-BioImaging ERIC; Turku; Hybrid; EUR 41,000 - 49,000; Full time

Job summary

Euro-BioImaging ERIC is hiring an Applied AI Engineer in Turku, Finland, for a fixed-term role up to 31 December 2028 with possible extension. Gross salary starts from €4,000/month, negotiable by experience.

You will lead design, development, and evaluation of AI-enabled access services across EU research infrastructures. You will translate user and scientific needs into concrete product requirements, drive usability testing and ensure responsible-AI practices, while collaborating with a

Qualifications

• A relevant higher education degree in human-computer interaction, service or interaction design, computer science, software engineering, information systems, artificial intelligence, data science or another relevant field is expected.
• Candidates with equivalent substantial professional experience are encouraged to apply.

Responsibilities

• Lead user research, persona development, user journeys, interaction design, prototyping and usability testing.
• Translate scientific use cases and research-infrastructure access workflows into product requirements, acceptance criteria and test scenarios.
• Shape the Research Navigator from early concepts and prototypes through iterative development to a production-ready service.
• Design and evaluate conversational and AI-assisted user interactions, including how recommendations, evidence, uncertainty and explanations are presented to users.
• Develop components for RAG, agentic search, structured generation, tool calling and human-in-the-loop workflows, keeping an updated modular model layer.
• Develop or contribute to MCP adapters, AI-facing APIs, and reusable integration components for open-source models.
• Establish systematic user-centered evaluation of the Navigator, combining usability, accessibility, task success and trustworthiness.
• Contribute to responsible-AI implementation, particularly transparency, explainability, privacy, accessibility, human oversight and user trust.

Skills

UX/HCI

User research

Prototyping

Python

APIs & PostgreSQL

AI-enabled services

RAG / AI retrieval

XAI / responsible AI

Multidisciplinary teamwork

English communication

Education

HCI/CS degree

Tools

FastAPI

Django

PostgreSQL

Job description

Euro-BioImaging Hiring: Applied AI Engineer

Location: Turku, Finland (Euro-BioImaging ERIC Statutory Seat)
Full-time position | Fixed term until 31 December 2028, with possible continuation subject to funding availability | Gross salary starting from €4,000/month, negotiable based on experience and qualifications

Shape the future of AI-powered access to European research infrastructures

Join Euro-BioImaging, the European research infrastructure providing world-class biological and biomedical imaging services to researchers and industry across Europe and beyond.

We are seeking an experienced and forward-looking Applied AI Engineer to shape the development of the Euro-BioImaging Research Navigator — an AI-powered service designed to transform how researchers and industry discover and access advanced imaging technologies, expertise and data services.

The role sits at the intersection of user experience, product development and AI-enabled services. You will translate the needs of researchers and research infrastructures into intuitive user journeys and clear product requirements, working closely with AI experts, software developers, user-access managers, scientific experts and research infrastructure partners.

About Euro-BioImaging ERIC

Euro-BioImaging ERIC is the European research infrastructure for biological and biomedical imaging. We provide open access to over 120 cutting-edge imaging technologies, expertise, training and data services through a distributed European network of Nodes and imaging facilities.

Our mission is to enable excellent and innovative science by connecting researchers and industry with the imaging technologies, services and expertise they need.

The projects

The position will contribute particularly to two major Horizon Europe initiatives coordinated by Euro-BioImaging ERIC.

AI4Access – AI-Driven User Access Services for Euro-BioImaging ERIC will develop the Research Navigator, a natural-language, AI-powered service that guides researchers from scientific questions to appropriate imaging technologies, facilities, workflows and data services. User research, personas, conversational interaction, iterative co-design and usability testing are central to its development.

ACCESS2ACCESS – Shaping the Future EU Access Pathways for Research Infrastructures develops the foundations for future cross-domain access to European research infrastructures. Its work includes an AI-assisted service-discovery concept, user journeys, trustworthy–AI principles and a user-tested prototype demonstrating how researchers can move from scientific problems to relevant services across different infrastructures.

Your role

You will lead the design, development, integration and evaluation of AI-enabled access services at Euro-BioImaging, translating user and scientific needs into trustworthy, user-centred and technically feasible solutions.

You will:

• Lead user research, persona development, user journeys, interaction design, prototyping and usability testing.

• Translate scientific use cases and research-infrastructure access workflows into product requirements, acceptance criteria and test scenarios.

• Shape the Research Navigator from early concepts and prototypes through iterative development to a production-ready service.

• Design and evaluate conversational and AI-assisted user interactions, including how recommendations, evidence, uncertainty and explanations are presented to users.

• Develop components for RAG, agentic search, structured generation, tool calling and human-in-the-loop workflows, keeping an updated modular model layer.

• Develop or contribute to MCP adapters, AI-facing APIs, and reusable integration components for open-source models.

• Establish systematic user-centered evaluation of the Navigator, combining usability, accessibility, task success and trustworthiness.

• Contribute to responsible-AI implementation, particularly transparency, explainability, privacy, accessibility, human oversight and user trust.

• Contribute to relevant project deliverables, demonstrations, consortium activities and the development of reusable approaches for other European research infrastructures.

Skills & experience

The successful candidate will bring strong applied AI engineering experience and work collaboratively with Euro-BioImaging’s web development team, partner AI developers, and Euro-BioImaging users. Candidates are not expected to have experience with every technology listed below.

Key skill-sets

• Demonstrated experience in digital product development, UX/HCI or service design, preferably involving AI-enabled or technically complex services.

• Experience applying user-centered methods—such as user research, prototyping and usability testing—to product development.

• Ability to translate complex scientific, technical or data-intensive processes into clear and intuitive user experiences.

• Strong Python experience, preferably with FastAPI or Django.

• Good understanding of APIs, PostgreSQL, search technologies and, ideally, knowledge graphs or ontologies.

• Hands-on experience developing or integrating AI/LLM-based applications, including conversational interfaces, preferably involving retrieval-augmented generation, AI-assisted search and human-in-the-loop approaches.

• Good understanding of the opportunities and limitations of generative AI, including hallucinations, uncertainty, provenance, explainability and responsible AI.

• Experience evaluating AI-enabled systems, including output reliability, retrieval quality, citations or answer traceability.

• Understanding of AI security, privacy and responsible‑AI principles, including secure handling of sensitive data, data leakage, prompt injection, threat modelling, access control, provenance and safe use of third-party or externally hosted AI services.

• Experience working effectively in multidisciplinary teams and translating between user, scientific and technical perspectives.

• Excellent written and spoken English.

Advantageous

Experience in one or more of the following would be particularly valuable:

• Figma or comparable prototyping tools and more extensive UX/HCI or service-design experience.

• Research infrastructures or other complex research environments, including scientific software.

• Ontologies, knowledge graphs, FAIR data or semantic technologies.

• AI evaluation and benchmarking.

• Privacy, cybersecurity and responsible‑AI frameworks.

• EU-funded collaborative projects or international research collaborations in related field.

Qualification

A relevant higher education degree in human-computer interaction, service or interaction design, computer science, software engineering, information systems, artificial intelligence, data science or another relevant field is expected. Candidates with equivalent substantial professional experience are also encouraged to apply.

We are particularly interested in candidates who can demonstrate that they have bridged user needs and technical development in designing and delivering complex digital or AI-enabled services.

Terms of employment

• Full-time, fixed-term contract until 31 December 2028, with possible continuation subject to funding availability.

• Starting date: as soon as possible, based on agreement.

• Gross salary starting from €4,000/month, negotiable based on expertise and qualifications.

• Primary place of work: Euro-BioImaging ERIC Headquarters, Turku, Finland. Limited hybrid work is possible.

• Six-month probation period.

• Occasional international travel is required.

Euro-BioImaging ERIC is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of gender, age, nationality, ethnic or social background, religion or belief, disability, sexual orientation or other personal characteristics.

For more information about the role, please contact:

Prof. John Eriksson
Director General
Euro-BioImaging ERIC
Phone [phone]