Head of AI

Dex; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Dex partners with a surgical AI company to lead the AI pillar end-to-end, building a team from the ground up to ship production AI for neurosurgery.

You will architect data pipelines for kinematics and tissue data, own the federated learning stack with NVIDIA FLARE, and collaborate on sim-to-real with Isaac Sim.

Delivery milestones include a neurosurgery anatomy recognition prototype by Q2 2028 with ≥85% accuracy and advancing from CV to vision-language-action for device automation.

Qualifications

• Shipped production AI/ML models in CV or related fields.
• Experience with medical imaging (DICOM, MONAI) or quick ramp.
• Ability to meet sub-20ms latency for edge deployment and manage DGX/RTX infra.
• Federated learning experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Deliver a working anatomy recognition prototype for neurosurgery by Q2 2028 with ≥85% segmentation accuracy.
• Lead the surgical foundation model program: CV to vision-language to vision-language-action.
• Architect data pipeline for kinematics and tissue-interaction data across endpoints.
• Own the federated learning stack and deploy NVIDIA FLARE.
• Define boundary with the simulation team on Isaac Sim, synthetic data, and sim-to-real transfer.

Skills

Production AI

Computer vision

Edge deployment

Federated learning

Team leadership

Tools

NVIDIA FLARE

Isaac Sim

MONAI

DICOM

Job description

This role is with one of Dex's trusted partner companies. We work closely with their teams to truly understand their culture, goals, and what they're looking for, so we can match you with the right opportunity and give you context about the role before you commit to a process.

Dex is an AI recruiter agent that helps you run your job search. Tell Dex your stack, seniority, and what you want to build. We will manage your applications and surface other opportunities that are a fit.

The role

Forget incremental improvements. This company is building the surgical intelligence layer, a platform that combines computer vision, AI, and augmented reality to give surgeons and robots real-time 3D navigation. Their core differentiator: a surgical foundation model, trained on kinematics, tissue interactions, and surgeon intent captured across deployed endpoints. This isn't academic research; it's about shipping models that fundamentally change surgical outcomes.

This isn't a research role. You'll lead the AI pillar end-to-end, building a team from the ground up. Your mandate: ship production AI. That means delivering an anatomy recognition model for neurosurgery (prototype by Q2 2028, ≥85% accuracy), then evolving the foundation model from computer vision to vision-language-action for device automation. You'll architect the data pipeline, own the federated learning stack, and define the boundary with the simulation team on synthetic data and sim-to-real transfer. Models in research are interesting; models in the operating room are valuable.

The work

• Deliver a working prototype of the anatomy recognition model for neurosurgery by Q2 2028, hitting ≥85% segmentation accuracy.
• Lead the surgical foundation model program: from computer vision and segmentation, to vision-language, to vision-language-action models for device automation.
• Architect the data pipeline for kinematics and tissue-interaction data across all deployed endpoints.
• Own the federated learning stack, deploying NVIDIA FLARE for privacy-preserving model improvement.
• Define the boundary and partner with the simulation team on Isaac Sim, synthetic data, and sim-to-real transfer.

What You Bring

• You've shipped production AI/ML models. Computer vision, segmentation, or vision-language experience is ideal.
• Experience with medical imaging (DICOM, segmentation networks, MONAI) or a rapid ability to ramp into it.
• You've worked with real-time inference constraints: sub-20ms latency, deployment to edge hardware like NVIDIA AGX.
• You own DGX/RTX-class training infrastructure and MLOps. Federated learning experience is a strong plus.
• You've led at least 2-3 engineers and want to grow a full AI pillar.
• Based in or around London, or able to work in person 3+ days a week.

Why apply through Dex

This is a rare leadership role at the cutting edge of surgical AI, the kind that's often hard to find and oversubscribed. We filter out the noise so you can focus on what matters.

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