ML Engineering Lead

Foundation Health; Greater London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare technology company in Greater London is seeking a Machine Learning Engineering Lead to drive AI initiatives and build production ML systems. As the first ML hire, you will architect solutions while mentoring a team and collaborating across departments. The ideal candidate has a strong software engineering background, extensive ML experience, and a PhD or equivalent in a relevant field. This role offers the chance to make a meaningful impact on healthcare operations with significant ownership and influence.

Benefits

Greenfield opportunity

Strong existing engineering culture

Modern ML stack

Meaningful impact on healthcare

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering background with high coding standards.
• Experience building and operating ML systems in production.
• Solid understanding of system design, distributed systems, and architecture tradeoffs.
• Comfortable writing clean, scalable, well-tested code.
• Proven ability to lead technically while remaining hands-on.
• Clear communicator who enjoys mentoring and collaboration.
• Customer-focused mindset with empathy for end users.
• PhD-level background (or equivalent experience) in ML, AI, or a related field.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy production ML systems across our platform.
• Lead the technical vision for AI/ML and establish best practices.
• Build and mentor a high-performing ML team.
• Work closely with backend and platform engineers on system design.
• Develop ML-powered automation features for healthcare workflows.
• Ensure ML systems are reliable, testable, observable, and secure.

Skills

Software engineering background

Building and operating ML systems

System design knowledge

Writing clean, testable code

Hands-on leadership

Mentoring and collaboration

Customer-focused mindset

PhD-level background in ML/AI

Education

PhD in ML, AI, or related field

Tools

GCP Vertex AI

AWS SageMaker

Terraform

Ansible

GitHub Actions

Job description

About Foundation Health

Foundation Health is transforming healthcare through an AI-powered digital pharmacy platform that seamlessly connects operational infrastructure with high quality patient experiences. Our mission is to transform patient centric care by connecting fragmented infrastructure, optimizing care coordination, and removing friction from the patient journey.

This ambitious vision is only achievable with the dedication of the right team propelling us forward. We firmly believe that a supportive and inspiring work environment fuels creativity, transforming it into groundbreaking innovation. It is this very innovation that not only benefits our organization but also positively impacts our people, partners, and most importantly, our patients.

The Role

We’re hiring a Machine Learning Engineering Lead to own and scale AI/ML at Foundation Health.

You’ll be hands-on from day one, setting technical direction, building production ML systems, and growing the ML team from the ground up. You’ll work closely with our software engineers and product teams to ship ML features that solve real healthcare problems.

This isn't research-only or “AI for AI’s sake” - it’s production ML in a regulated, high-impact environment.

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and deploy production ML systems across our platform
  

• Lead the technical vision for AI/ML and establish best practices
  

• Build and mentor a high-performing ML team
  

• Work closely with backend and platform engineers on system design
  

• Develop ML-powered automation features for healthcare workflows
  

• Use tools like OpenAI, Langfuse, and GCP Vertex AI in real-world applications
  

• Ensure ML systems are reliable, testable, observable, and secure
  

What We’re Looking For

• Strong software engineering background with high coding standards
  

• Experience building and operating ML systems in production
  

• Solid understanding of system design, distributed systems, and architecture tradeoffs
  

• Comfortable writing clean, scalable, well-tested code
  

• Proven ability to lead technically while remaining hands-on
  

• Clear communicator who enjoys mentoring and collaboration
  

• Customer-focused mindset with empathy for end users
  

• Likely PhD-level background (or equivalent experience) in ML, AI, or a related field
  

Nice to Have

• Experience with cloud ML platforms (GCP Vertex AI, AWS SageMaker)
  

• Knowledge of streaming data systems (Flink, Beam, Spark, Kafka)
  

• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible, GitHub Actions)
  

• Strong interest in security, privacy, and regulated environments
  

• Experience with complex systems (e.g. payments, healthcare, finance)
  

Why Join Us?

• First ML hire with real ownership and influence
  

• Greenfield opportunity to define ML at a Series-A company
  

• Strong existing engineering culture
  

• Modern ML stack and real production problems
  

• Meaningful impact on healthcare operations