Principal NLP Scientist - Location: Singapore

MRL Consulting Group | Global Niche Technology Recruitment; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

MRL Consulting Group | Global Niche Technology Recruitment seeks a Principal NLP Scientist to lead enterprise NLP and LLM initiatives, shaping technical direction and producing scalable AI solutions.

You will work with engineers, data scientists, and product teams to build and deploy AI capabilities, mentor staff, and stay ahead of advances in NLP and generative AI.

Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science, AI, ML, Computational Linguistics, Data Science, Applied Mathematics, or related field.
• 8+ years of professional experience in AI, ML, or NLP.
• At least 5 years hands-on experience developing NLP/LLM solutions for production.
• Strong Python, PyTorch, and Hugging Face Transformers expertise.
• Deep understanding of Transformer architectures, embeddings, attention mechanisms, and modern NLP techniques.
• Experience with production-ready LLMs, prompt engineering, evaluation, fine-tuning, and deployment.
• Experience designing RAG, GraphRAG, vector search, embeddings, and knowledge graphs.
• Experience with SQL databases and structured enterprise data.
• Familiarity with Azure, AWS, or other cloud platforms.
• Excellent communication skills, agile development experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead the research, design, and development of advanced NLP and LLM solutions for enterprise applications.
• Design and implement models for NER, text classification, semantic search, information extraction, document understanding, and text generation.
• Develop and optimise RAG, GraphRAG, and knowledge graph solutions to enhance AI workflows.
• Evaluate, fine-tune, and deploy Large Language Models for production use cases.
• Define experimentation strategies, evaluation frameworks, and success metrics for NLP models.
• Build prototypes and proof-of-concepts to validate emerging AI technologies.
• Collaborate with software engineering to integrate AI services into production platforms.
• Establish best practices for model evaluation, data quality, annotation standards, and MLOps.
• Monitor model performance and drive continuous optimisation.
• Mentor engineers and data scientists while providing technical leadership.
• Stay current with advances in NLP, generative AI, and language modelling.

Skills

NLP expertise

Python

PyTorch

Hugging Face Transformers

LLM development

RAG / knowledge graphs

SQL databases

Cloud platforms (Azure/AWS)

Agile environment

Education

PhD in Computer Science / AI / ML or related

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

ML Ops tooling

Neo4j / graph DBs

Job description

A global technology company is seeking a Principal NLP Scientist to lead the research, design, and implementation of advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Model (LLM) solutions for enterprise-scale applications. This is a senior technical leadership role for an experienced AI specialist who is passionate about transforming cutting-edge language technologies into reliable, scalable, and production-ready business solutions.

Working alongside software engineers, data scientists, and product teams, you will define the technical direction for NLP initiatives, build innovative AI capabilities, and help shape the future of intelligent automation across the business.

What You\'ll Do

• Lead the research, design, and development of advanced NLP and LLM solutions for enterprise applications.
• Design and implement models for named entity recognition, text classification, semantic search, information extraction, document understanding, and text generation.
• Develop and optimise Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), GraphRAG, and knowledge graph solutions to enhance AI-powered workflows.
• Evaluate, fine-tune, and deploy Large Language Models for production use cases.
• Define experimentation strategies, evaluation frameworks, and success metrics for NLP models.
• Build prototypes and proof-of-concepts to validate emerging AI technologies and business opportunities.
• Collaborate with software engineering teams to integrate AI services into production platforms.
• Establish best practices for model evaluation, data quality, annotation standards, and MLOps.
• Monitor model performance, identify improvement opportunities, and drive continuous optimisation.
• Mentor engineers and data scientists while providing technical leadership across AI initiatives.
• Stay current with advances in NLP, generative AI, and language modelling to identify opportunities for innovation.

What We\'re Looking For

• PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computational Linguistics, Data Science, Applied Mathematics, or a related discipline.
• 8+ years of professional experience in AI, Machine Learning, or NLP.
• At least 5 years of hands-on experience developing NLP or LLM solutions for production environments.
• Strong expertise in Python, PyTorch, and Hugging Face Transformers.
• Deep understanding of Transformer architectures, embeddings, attention mechanisms, fine-tuning strategies, and modern NLP techniques.
• Practical experience with Large Language Models, prompt engineering, model evaluation, fine-tuning, and production deployment.
• Experience designing and implementing RAG, GraphRAG, vector search, embeddings, and knowledge graph solutions.
• Strong understanding of data preparation, annotation workflows, model evaluation, and AI quality metrics.
• Experience working with SQL databases and structured enterprise data.
• Familiarity with Azure, AWS, or other cloud platforms.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain complex AI concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working in Agile software development environments.

Nice to Have

• Commercial experience leading NLP or Generative AI initiatives.
• Experience building multilingual NLP solutions.
• Expertise with vector databases, semantic search, and AI retrieval systems.
• Knowledge of graph databases such as Neo4j, FalkorDB, or similar technologies.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and MLOps pipelines.
• Familiarity with enterprise software development using .NET/C# or similar technologies.
• Publications, patents, or recognised contributions within NLP, Machine Learning, or Artificial Intelligence.
• Experience developing AI-powered enterprise products or intelligent automation platforms.

What You\'ll Gain

• Opportunity to define the future AI strategy within a growing global engineering organisation.
• Work on challenging NLP and Generative AI solutions with real business impact.
• Collaborate with experienced software engineers, AI researchers, and product leaders.
• Access to cutting-edge AI technologies and ongoing professional development.
• Competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package.

If you\'re passionate about advancing Natural Language Processing and Large Language Models while building production-ready AI systems that solve complex business challenges, we\'d love to hear from you.