Founding Machine Learning Engineer

Bjak Sdn Bhd; Remote; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A tech startup specializing in AI is seeking a Machine Learning Engineer to help transform language models into impactful products. You'll fine-tune advanced models, shape data pipelines, and bring intelligent features to life in real-world environments. The role emphasizes high ownership and autonomy within a small, technical team, offering a competitive compensation package and the chance to shape a new global AI application from scratch.

Benefits

Competitive compensation

Performance-based bonuses

Remote-first flexibility

Insurance coverage

Flexible time off

Qualifications

• Strong experience with transformers, deep learning, and fine-tuning methods.
• Proficiency in PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Ability to operate in a fast, lean, and high-ownership environment.

Responsibilities

• Fine-tune and adapt models as needed while designing new model architectures.
• Design and curate datasets and craft prompts for high-quality outputs.
• Ship models to production, optimize for latency and scale.

Skills

Transformers

Deep learning

Fine-tuning methods

PyTorch

Prompt engineering

Software engineering fundamentals

Job description

Overview

Transform language models into real-world, high-impact product experiences. A1 is a self-funded AI division backed by BJAK, operating in full stealth. We're building a new global consumer AI application focused on an important but underexplored use case - something practical, meaningful, and far beyond the typical chatbot or productivity agent. As a Machine Learning Engineer, you will work at the core of our product: fine-tuning frontier-level models, shaping data pipelines, evaluating behavior, and bringing intelligent features into real production environments. You'll operate with high autonomy within a small, deeply technical team.

What You'll Do

• Fine-tune and adapt models as needed while also designing new model architectures and training pipelines from scratch.
• Design and curate datasets, craft prompts, and experiment with alignment and safety strategies for high-quality outputs.
• Build evaluation pipelines for model performance, safety, and alignment, and innovate on new metrics for real-world impact.
• Ship models to production, optimise for latency and scale, and monitor drift or degradation.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, and design to launch polished, user-facing AI features.
• Explore new modeling approaches, optimisation methods, and product use cases.

What It's Like to Work Here

• You take ownership - you solve problems end-to-end rather than wait for perfect instructions.
• You learn through action - prototype test iterate ship.
• You're calm in ambiguity - zero-to-one building energises you.
• You bias toward speed with discipline - V1 now and then perfect later.
• You see failures and feedback as essential to growth.
• You work with humility, curiosity, and a founder's mindset.
• You lift the bar for yourself and your teammates every day.

Requirements

• Strong experience with transformers, deep learning, and fine-tuning methods (LoRA/QLoRA, SFT, distillation).
• Proficiency in PyTorch (preferred) or TensorFlow.
• Experience in prompt engineering and dataset creation for alignment, tone, trust, and safety.
• Familiarity with evaluation methods: perplexity, toxicity, relevance, robustness.
• Solid software engineering fundamentals - algorithms, data structures, clean code.
• Ability to operate in a fast, lean, and high-ownership environment.
• Nice to Have: Experience with text generation, moderation, ranking, or personalisation.
• Exposure to RLHF or reinforcement learning for LLMs.
• Contributions to open-source ML projects.
• Background in consumer-facing AI products or high-growth startups.

What You'll Get

• High ownership and autonomy from day one.
• Direct involvement in technical direction and product decisions.
• Remote-first flexibility.
• A high-impact role with visibility across ML, engineering, and product.
• Competitive compensation and performance-based bonuses.
• Backing of a profitable US$2B group, with the speed of a startup.
• Insurance coverage, flexible time off, and global travel insurance.
• Opportunity to shape a new global AI product from zero.

About A1

A1 is a self-funded, independent AI division under BJAK, focused on building a new consumer AI product with global relevance. We're in full stealth and assembling a small, elite team of ML and engineering builders who want to work on meaningful, high-impact problems.