Director of AI and Research

JR United Kingdom; London; Hybrid; GBP 127,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting health-tech start-up is seeking a Director of AI & Research to define the AI strategy, lead cutting-edge research, and build a high-impact team. This role offers the chance to shape the company's AI vision and ensure compliance in a regulated environment, working on innovative projects aimed at improving patient outcomes.

Qualifications

• Experience in shipping LLM-based products or conversational AI systems.
• Knowledge of ML/NLP frameworks and orchestration stacks.
• Track record in AI governance and compliance within regulated sectors.

Responsibilities

• Define and deliver the AI strategy, owning the roadmap for conversational AI.
• Lead cutting-edge research and architect safe, scalable solutions.
• Build and mentor a world-class team, collaborating cross-functionally.

Skills

Machine Learning

Natural Language Processing

Leadership

Ethical AI

Human-Centric Technology

Education

Degree in Machine Learning, NLP, Computational Linguistics, or related field

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

JAX

LangChain

Vector Databases

Job description

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Director of Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Research

Type: Permanent

Location: Hybrid – London, onsite 3 days a week

Salary: Up to £150,000

An exciting and rapidly growing health-tech start-up are seeking a Director of AI & Research to define how the business can start to leverage LLMs and conversational AI across their diverse prodcut offerings. This is a chance to shape the entire AI vision from research, roadmap, and prototype to a nationwide rollout, while setting the gold-standard for safety, ethics, and governance in a regulated environment.

As Director of AI & Research you will spearhead conversational AI, design next-generation AI-powered care models, and define rigorous guardrails to ensure the safety and confidentiality of all users. This is an opportunity to work on greenfield challenges, hands-on experimentation, and to build and lead a high-impact team.

Responsibilities:

• Define & deliver the AI strategy - own the roadmap for conversational AI, generative LLMs, and predictive care models from ideation to production.
• Lead cutting-edge research - run rapid experiments, RLHF loops, fine-tuning, and retrieval-augmented generation to push the boundaries of clinical dialogue systems.
• Architect safe, scalable solutions - design reference & MLOps architectures on cloud with robust guard rails in place.
• Establish governance & guardrails - craft policies, model cards, and internal frameworks that ensure compliance with NHS, MDR, ISO 13485, GDPR, and emerging AI/ML regulations.
• Build & mentor a world-class team - recruit and develop Researchers, ML Engineers, and Data Scientists who thrive on collaboration and experimentation.
• Collaborate cross-functionally - partner with customers, product, and regulatory teams to translate research into safe, user-centric features.

Qualifications

• Degree or equivalent experience in Machine Learning, NLP, Computational Linguistics, or a related field.
• Demonstrated success shipping LLM-based products (GPT, Llama, Mistral, or similar) or conversational AI systems into production.
• Deep knowledge of modern ML/NLP frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX) and orchestration stacks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, vector databases).
• Proven track record driving AI governance, model risk management, and compliance within regulated sectors (healthcare, med-tech, pharma, fintech, etc.).
• Strong leadership & mentorship skills; comfortable scaling teams from scratch while fostering an inclusive, high-trust culture.
• Hands-on experience with cloud architectures, CI/CD, and MLOps best practices.
• Passion for improving patient outcomes through ethical, human-centric technology.

This is an excellent opportunity for a Director of AI & Research to leave a lasting mark on digital healthcare at a business already recieving great media coverage and consumer feedback.