Sovereign AI Model Engineer

NestAI; Oulu; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Occupational healthcare

Flex benefits

Lunch benefit

Team lunches

Mac or PC

Holiday pay

Phone allowance

Job summary

NestAI is hiring a Model Engineer to join the initiative focused on battlefield autonomy and orchestration. This senior developer role will build and iterate on models for drone and command platforms, emphasizing pre-training, fine-tuning, evaluation, and multimodal reasoning.

You’ll work in a still-forming environment with evolving tooling and data, contributing technical judgment and helping define evaluation benchmarks while aligning with sovereign European defense goals.

Qualifications

• Experience training, fine-tuning, and evaluating ML models, including multimodal or large-scale models.
• Ability to work in an under-specified environment with evolving tooling and data.
• Interest in geospatial/spatial reasoning, simulation, or embodied AI problems.

Responsibilities

• Build and iterate on model prototypes across tracks, from early experiments to benchmarking against existing C2/Edge functionality.
• Work hands-on with multimodal and geospatial reasoning problems to enable models that can reason over maps and terrain.
• Help stand up early evaluation harnesses and benchmarks with measurable progress against real baselines.
• Work with simulated/synthetic data in the near term, coordinating with data owners on usability and build requirements.
• Contribute technical judgment upward, flagging unproductive directions and promoting fast failure when needed.

Skills

ML model training

Fine-tuning

Evaluation

Multimodal models

Geospatial reasoning

Embodied AI

Adaptability in uncertain env

Education

PhD in quantitative field

Tools

None

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.

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

Europe builds the unmanned vehicles and the platforms. It does not build the models that fly and command them. The intelligence inside Europe’s defences runs on models trained elsewhere, and access to the best models can be cut off overnight. NestAI is building sovereign AI models for defence to change this. We are initially focusing on models for battlefield autonomy and orchestration, bringing together real operational data, simulation and synthetic data to build models that can continuously adapt as the battlefield changes.

We’re hiring a Model Engineer to join the initiative. This is a senior developer role where you’ll join the team developing models for battlefield autonomy and orchestration.

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

• Build and iterate on model prototypes across both tracks: from early proof-of-life experiments to benchmarking against existing C2/Edge functionality.
• Work hands-on with multimodal and geospatial reasoning problems: LLMs currently fall short on spatial/geospatial reasoning, and closing that gap is core to the effort (e.g. representing maps and terrain as something a model can actually reason over, not just look at).
• Help stand up early evaluation harnesses and benchmarks so progress is measurable against a real baseline, not just a demo.
• Work against simulated/synthetic data in the near term, coordinating with whoever owns the data owners on what's usable and what needs to be built.
• Contribute technical judgment upward: flag when a direction isn’t working rather than quietly grinding on it, making sure we fail fast.

What We’re Looking For

• Solid hands-on experience training, fine-tuning, and evaluating ML models - ideally including multimodal or large-scale model work. You understand trade-offs in where to use single-task models and where large models.
• Comfort working in a still-forming, under-specified environment: this project doesn't have settled tooling, data, or team structure yet, and the ability to make progress without waiting for all of that to exist is more valuable than following an established playbook.
• Genuine curiosity about geospatial/spatial reasoning, simulation, or embodied AI problems - these show up constantly in this domain and current foundation models handle them poorly.

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.