Research Engineer - AI

grasp.study; London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in educational technology is seeking an R&D Engineer to design and develop innovative learning tools. The role involves significant individual contribution, working with machine learning and generative AI, and collaborating with a flat, dynamic team. Ideal candidates will have extensive programming experience and advanced degrees in relevant fields. Attractive perks and a compelling mission await those who enjoy learning.

Benefits

Employee options scheme (EMI)

Access to all Grasp learning tools for personal self-study

Dinner/Breakfast

Statutory pension (NEST)

GPUs available

Qualifications

• 8+ years of programming and software engineering experience in industry.
• Experience designing new products and LLM pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead projects and take initiative in solving problems.
• Translate high-level objectives into technical roadmaps.

Skills

Programming

Machine Learning

Applied Mathematics

Education

Advanced Degree in Computer Science

Advanced Degree in Physics

Advanced Degree in Applied Mathematics

Advanced Degree in Electronic Engineering

Tools

Python

FastAPI

React

GCP

Kubernetes

Job description

Company Mission & Product

We believe that everyone can have equal and unconstrained access to educational experiences on par with Oxford, Cambridge, CalTech, et cetera. We believe that this can be achieved with a new class of learning tools, which combine advances in cognitive science, language models, and datasets. We are building these tools in England.

Our first product, Grasp Concepts, enables students to disambiguate and learn concepts through great online explanations and is deployed with design partners including Imperial College London. Our second product, Grasp Pathways, decomposes learning goals and suggests flexible learning trajectories to reach them, using reputable learning resources like books and lectures, and is in private alpha. An on-demand, online Oxbridge-like experience.

Team and Funding

We've raised significant capital from top tier investors including Balderton Capital, Mozilla (yes, Firefox), and Point9. Our founder Ed built the Payments and Trading products at Revolut alongside his bachelors and masters degrees. He was also one of a handful of investors at DST Global. Our team have backgrounds in elite institutions including Revolut, Huawei, Max-Planck Institute, Oxford, and Cambridge. We're building something so challenging that we seek only the best collaborators.

R&D Engineering at Grasp

This is a system design, prototyping, and development role, with a high degree of individual contribution. The systems you build will involve machine learning, generative AI, and applied mathematics (e.g., graph algorithms) as you solve problems for online self-directed learners. As an individual contributor, you will be expected to lead projects and take initiative when new problems arise. You will need to decompose company objectives into clearly defined roadmaps and break these down into near-term tasks, splitting these between yourself and others. You will work closely with all colleagues (designers, engineers, founders) daily and interact with users. Our company is flat and collaborative in structure. You should find our mission and products compelling, i.e., you enjoy learning new things in your free time.

Tech Stack

Backend: Python, FastAPI, UV for package management (we have a monorepo), domain-driven design, event-based architecture

Frontend: Typescript, React, Bun for package management (monorepo again), Tailwind CSS, Shadcn

Infrastructure: GCP, Kubernetes (k8s)

• Extensive experience in programming, machine learning, and applied mathematics for R&D projects.
• 8+ years of programming and software engineering in industry, including several years working with Python.
• Experience designing new products (e.g., research engineer embedded in a product team working on innovative solutions).
• Designed and built (as an individual contributor) systems involving LLM pipelines as components.
• Ability to translate high-level strategic objectives into a technical roadmap with regular milestones.
• An advanced degree in Computer Science, Physics, Applied Mathematics, Electronic Engineering, or a similar field.

• Reasonable London salary
• Employee options scheme (EMI)
• Office-based team
• Access to all Grasp learning tools for personal self-study
• Dinner/Breakfast
• Statutory pension (NEST)
• GPUs available