Sovereign AI Model Development Lead

NestAI; Helsinki; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Occupational healthcare

Epassi Flex benefit

Lunch benefit

Regular team lunches

Mac or PC choice

Holiday allowance

Phone benefit

Job summary

NestAI is seeking a Model Development Lead to guide the architecture and roadmap for sovereign AI models used in battlefield autonomy and orchestration. This is a senior technology leadership role shaping what to build and how to grow the team around you.

You’ll drive pre-training, fine-tuning, evaluation, and deployment strategies for large‑scale multimodal models, balancing performance with constrained deployment environments and sovereign considerations.

Qualifications

• Senior leader with experience in training large-scale multimodal AI models.
• Deep technical competence in model development: pre-training, fine-tuning, evaluation.
• Experience enabling constrained deployment in edge/embedded contexts.
• Strong evaluation discipline and ability to define benchmarks and failure modes.
• Experience coordinating model architecture, data strategy, training infra, inference, and product integration.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical architecture and roadmap for the foundation model.
• Align NestAI strategy on battlefield autonomy and orchestration with model development.
• Operate with decision authority to iterate quickly and translate vision into milestones.
• Attract and retain top talent by communicating technical direction and opportunities.
• Report progress with scoped plans, decision gates, and risk assessment.
• Grow and staff the team to achieve company objectives.

Skills

Senior AI leadership

Multimodal models

Pre-training / fine-tuning

Edge deployment

Evaluation discipline

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

PhD preferred

Tools

Quantisation

Distillation

Pruning

Edge deployment

Job description

About NestAI

NestAI is a European AI lab for defence delivering the adaptive operating system for modern battlefield operations. We develop adaptive intelligence for unmanned and command systems: AI that continuously learns from operational data and adapts to changing conditions.

NestOS is our open, modular and interoperable platform that enables this at scale and keeps capability evolution under sovereign European control. Founded in 2025 by Peter Sarlin, whose previous company Silo AI became Europe's largest AI acquisition, NestAI brings together over 200 engineers and scientists and partners with leading European defence forces and industry.

Role Description

NestAI is building sovereign AI models for defence, initially focusing on models for battlefield autonomy and orchestration.

We're hiring a Model Development Lead to help us drive the effort. This is a senior technology leadership role where you'll set technical and architectural direction for an existing team, making the calls on what to build and growing the team around you.

You would chart what a large-scale battlefield foundation model could become if unconstrained by the current Edge and C2 product roadmaps. This includes what battlefield data it should learn from, what reasoning capabilities it should develop, how it could support strategic, operational, and tactical decision-making and how it could adapt to new tactics emerging from the field.

In order to succeed, you need deep technical competence in model development, including pre-training, fine-tuning, evaluation, multimodal learning, long-context reasoning, model compression, and understanding of deployment trade-offs.

What you'll do

• Own the technical architecture and roadmap, translating an ambitious vision into a sequenced plan that can be executed and that creates verifiable milestones.

• Build an understanding of NestAI strategy of battlefield autonomy and orchestration and map how the model development acts as a layer that elevates the overall company roadmap through the foundation model.

• Operate with real decision authority to make sure that we iterate quickly and fail fast. You’re not just an advisory voice but charted with making ambiguity reality.

• Represent the project's technical thinking to help attract the caliber of talent this kind of work requires.

• Report progress in a form leadership can act on: an agreed scoping, a phased plan with clear decision gates, and an honest account of risks and opportunities.

• Grow and staff the team around so that you and the company are set out for success.

What we're looking for

• Senior experience in training and leading the training of large-scale, multimodal AI models- ideally from a frontier AI lab (e.g. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind) or a comparably serious scaled effort.

• You have deep technical competence in model development, including pre-training, fine-tuning, evaluation, multimodal learning, long-context reasoning, model compression, and deployment trade-offs.

• Experience building or adapting models for constrained deployment environments, including quantisation, distillation, pruning, or other compression techniques for edge, embedded, or air-gapped systems.

• Strong evaluation discipline: ability to define domain-specific benchmarks, failure modes, acceptance criteria, and feedback loops for models where standard academic benchmarks are not enough.

• Experience working across model architecture, data strategy, training infrastructure, inference deployment, and product integration.

• Experience collaborating with external research partners while maintaining internal technical ownership and architectural control.

Nice to have: a PhD in a relevant quantitative field; prior exposure to autonomous systems, simulation, or edge-constrained systems; experience or interest in defence, dual-use, or other regulated/sovereign-technology environments.

Why join NestAI

At NestAI, you’ll build meaningful, real-world technology as part of a world-class team of engineers, scientists, and experienced professionals. You’ll work on systems where reliability genuinely matters, contribute to Europe’s security and resilience, and solve problems that demand depth, trust, and craftsmanship.

If you want to build with purpose — and with leading experts in the field — you’ve come to the right place.

Perks & Benefits

We offer a growing set of practical benefits to support your work and wellbeing, day to day:

• Occupational healthcare (currently provided by Mehiläinen)

• Epassi Flex benefit (sports, culture, commuting, wellbeing)

• Lunch benefit (25% tax-free coverage)

• Regular team lunches and all-hands events

• Your choice of Mac or PC

• Holiday allowance (50% of holiday salary)

• Phone benefit according to company policy (subscription and device)
  

We are continuously developing and expanding our benefits as we grow.

Practicalities

Employment is subject to applicable security screening (including SUPO, where required).

NestAI is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all applicants based on their skills, experience, and potential.

The preferred location for this position is Finland, but Sweden, Estonia or other EU countries are possible as well.