Machine Learning Engineer — LLMs, Retrieval and MLOps for NATO with security clearance

WLG; Den Haag; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

WLG is seeking an engineer to take a model from development to production, working on real datasets and problems. You will own the pipeline around the model, aligning with reliability and traceability standards in a defence context.

You will design, test and refactor AI components, ensure secure practices, and support the full lifecycle from data gathering to monitoring. Collaboration across teams and constant knowledge sharing are expected.

Qualifications

• Hands-on history of developing, optimising and deploying AI pipelines.
• Strong programming alongside ML; software engineering discipline.
• Experience with pre-trained/foundation models and LLMs.
• In-depth knowledge of model evaluation and lifecycle.
• Practical use of retrieval-augmented generation and vector stores.

Responsibilities

• Bringing ML and data science methods to new datasets and questions.
• Identify and fix issues in models, pipelines and data.
• Design, write, test and refactor AI components and scripts.
• Adhere to engineering standards and secure development practices.
• Support full lifecycle: gather needs, plan work, automate CI/CD.
• Define AI modules, build definitions, validate against criteria.
• Build and improve data pipelines: extraction, transformation, loading.
• Communicate progress, risks and blockers; share ownership via reviews.
• Monitor field arrivals and contribute to roadmaps and knowledge sharing.

Skills

ML in production

Python programming

Software engineering

CI/CD

MLOps

Tools

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Pydantic

FastAPI

Docker

Kubernetes

Airflow

Argo

Job description

A multinational defence organisation is building its own applied AI capability, and is looking for an engineer who can take a model all the way into service. You would work on real datasets and real problems, own the pipeline around the model as much as the model itself, and do it inside an environment where reliability and traceability matter more than novelty.

What You Would Be Doing

• Bringing machine learning and data science methods to new datasets and new questions, and judging honestly how well the result performs and how good the data underneath it is.
• Finding what is wrong in models, pipelines and datasets, and fixing it in ways that survive contact with production.
• Designing, writing, testing, documenting and refactoring the programs, scripts and AI components the capability is made of.
• Working to the engineering standards and secure development practices of the organisation, so that what you build can be maintained by someone else.
• Supporting the whole lifecycle: gathering what is actually needed, choosing how the team works, and automating build, test, release and monitoring.
• Defining AI modules for integration, producing the build definitions and validating finished modules against agreed functional, quality, security and performance criteria.
• Building and improving the data pipelines that feed all of it, including extraction, transformation and loading work.
• Keeping colleagues informed - progress, risks and blockers - and sharing delivery ownership through reviews rather than handovers.
• Watching what is arriving in the field and contributing to technology assessments, roadmaps and internal knowledge sharing.

What you would bring

• Hands-on history of developing, optimising, deploying and maintaining complete AI pipelines, including training, packaging, monitoring and lifecycle management.
• Strong programming alongside the machine learning: software engineering discipline applied to applied AI work.
• A solid grasp of model evaluation - how performance is measured, how it is assessed and how a model is actually improved.
• Practical use of pre-trained and foundation models, large language models and generative techniques on problems that needed solving.
• Retrieval-augmented generation, embeddings, vector stores and production agent backends, with frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex or Pydantic AI.
• MLOps in earnest: version control, continuous integration and delivery, experiment and model lifecycle practice, automated build and release.
• Backend craft - REST services and modern Python with FastAPI, Pydantic or similar.
• Containers and orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, cloud provisioning, and workflow orchestration such as Airflow or Argo.
• Guardrails and operational control for language-model systems: observability, logging and monitoring that tell you when something has drifted.
• SQL and NoSQL databases, and enough TypeScript, Node.js or Next.js to meet the front end halfway.
• Nice to have: experience of working in secure, restricted or disconnected environments.

Extensions are offered where the work goes well.