AI Research Lead

ALTEN Group; Portsmouth; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private Medical Insurance

Cycle & Tech Scheme

Employee assistance programme

Life insurance & Pension Scheme

Social atmosphere & team events

Flexible working

Job summary

ALTEN is seeking an experienced AI Research Lead to drive R&D and deployment of next‑gen AI solutions, focusing on LLMs, VLMs, CV, and multimodal systems. Bridge research and production, lead experiments, and provide technical leadership across multimodal projects.

You will design scalable architectures in cloud environments, mentor AI engineers, stay current with AI advances, and translate research into production‑ready solutions. Security clearance may be required.

Qualifications

• Experience with LLMs and VLMs, including prompt engineering and model optimisation.
• Design and implement RAG pipelines for retrieval augmented generation.
• Experience building multimodal AI systems with vision-language capabilities.
• Knowledge of evaluating model performance, robustness, and safety.
• Strong Python development and API/service design.
• Experience with cloud platforms and MLOps workflows.

Responsibilities

• Lead research across LLM, VLM, and multimodal AI domains.
• Design and evaluate AI models with text, image, and multimodal reasoning.
• Develop and optimise RAG architectures.
• Drive experimentation, benchmarking, and validation activities.
• Fine-tune foundation models for business use cases.
• Collaborate with engineering to productionize research outputs.
• Define AI architectures in cloud-native, distributed environments.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to AI engineers and researchers.
• Stay current with AI research and industry advancements.

Skills

LLMs

VLMs

Prompt engineering

RAG pipelines

Multimodal AI

Model evaluation

Python

APIs

Docker

Kubernetes

Azure

Education

Bachelor’s/Master’s in Engineering

Computer Science

Artificial Intelligence

Robotics

Electrical & Electronic Engineering

Related STEM discipline

Tools

Python

APIs

Docker

Kubernetes

Azure

MLOps

Job description

AI Research Lead

AI Research Lead

ALTEN is a global engineering and technology consultancy operating across over 35 countries worldwide. We partner with industry leaders across sectors including Aeronautics, Aerospace, Defence, Naval, Automotive, Energy, Rail, IT and many more to deliver innovative engineering solutions that drive technological advancement & support sustainable transformation.

Our teams of passionate and agile engineers work on cutting-edge projects that shape the future of technology and sustainability. At ALTEN, we empower talented engineers to innovate, solve complex challenges, and deliver impactful solutions that build tomorrow’s world—today.

Join us and start building tomorrow’s world today!

We are seeking an experienced AI Research Lead to drive the research, development, and deployment of next-generation AI solutions, with a particular focus on Large Language Models (LLMs), Vision Language Models (VLMs), Computer Vision, and Multimodal AI systems.

This role is ideal for a highly technical professional who can bridge cutting-edge research and production engineering, translating innovative concepts into scalable, real-world solutions. You will lead AI initiatives, design experimentation frameworks, and provide technical leadership across multimodal AI projects.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead research and development activities across LLM, VLM, and multimodal AI domains.
• Design, implement, and evaluate AI models incorporating text, image, and multimodal reasoning capabilities.
• Develop and optimise Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures.
• Drive experimentation, model evaluation, benchmarking, and validation activities.
• Fine-tune and adapt foundation models for business-specific use cases.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to transition research outputs into production-ready systems.
• Define AI system architectures leveraging cloud-native and distributed computing environments.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to AI engineers and researchers.
• Stay current with the latest academic and industry advancements in AI and machine learning.

Required Skills:

AI & Multimodal Systems

• Expertise with Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT, Llama, Mistral, or equivalent.
• Experience with Vision Language Models (VLMs) including CLIP, BLIP, and related multimodal architectures.
• Strong understanding of prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and model optimisation.
• Experience designing and implementing RAG pipelines.
• Deep knowledge of multimodal AI, vision-language fusion, and reasoning systems.
• Experience evaluating model performance, robustness, and safety.

Software Engineering

• Advanced Python development skills.
• Experience building scalable AI services and APIs.
• Strong backend development and integration experience.
• Knowledge of software engineering best practices and MLOps workflows.

Cloud & Infrastructure

• Experience with Microsoft Azure (preferred), AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Containerisation using Docker.
• Orchestration using Kubernetes and/or Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Experience designing microservices-based and distributed architectures.

Research & Innovation Capabilities

• Expertise in experiment design and scientific evaluation methodologies.
• Ability to rapidly prototype, test, and validate AI concepts.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Proven ability to transform research findings into production-grade solutions.
• Passion for innovation and emerging AI technologies.

Required Qualifications:

• A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Engineering, orequivalentmilitary experience or a degree in
• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Robotics
• Electrical & Electronic Engineering
• Related STEM discipline

Desirable Skills:

• Generative AI product development.
• Computer Vision and image understanding systems.
• AI agent frameworks and autonomous workflows.
• Knowledge graphs and semantic retrieval systems.
• MLOps and model deployment pipelines.
• Team leadership or technical management experience.

Why join us?

We bring together entrepreneurial, tech-driven people to deliver innovative solutions for leading companies.

At ALTEN, you’ll work on exciting projects, supported by ongoing learning, mentoring, and clear career development tailored to your goals.

Join a passionate team and help build tomorrow, today.

In short you get:

• A personalised career path and a rewarding management style
• A huge diversity of engineering projects and industries
• Private MedicalInsurance
• Cycle& Tech Scheme
• Employee assistance programme
• Life insurance & Pension Scheme
• Social atmosphere, regular gatherings &team buildings
• Flexible way of working (role dependent)

We are proud to support the Armed Forces Covenant & actively encourage applications from members of the Armed Forces community, including veterans, reservists, service leavers, and military spouses/partners. We recognise the value of military skills and experience and are committed to ensuring that no applicant is unfairly disadvantaged during our recruitment and selection processes.

ALTEN is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace and values the strength that comes from a global mix of backgrounds and perspectives. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates, regardless of background or protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.

This role may require you to have or be willing to go through Security Clearance. As part of the onboarding process candidates will be asked to complete a Baseline Personnel Security Standard; details of the evidence required to apply may be found on the government website Gov.UK. If you are unable to meet this and any associated criteria, then your employment may be delayed, or rejected . Details of this will be discussed with you at interview.