Research Assistant, AI Research and Engineering

National University of Singapore; Singapore; On-site; SGD 33,000 - 56,000; Full time

Job summary

The National University of Singapore invites applications for a Research Assistant at the Asian Institute of Digital Finance to support AI research and finance-related machine learning projects.

You will translate ideas into experiments, mentor interns, and work across research and engineering to deliver reproducible results and impactful findings.

This hands-on role blends research, software development and project coordination in a collaborative academic setting.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Data Science, Financial Engineering or a related discipline.
• Strong Python programming skills and hands-on experience with machine learning or LLM-based applications.
• Familiarity with AI development frameworks and tools, such as PyTorch, Hugging Face or LLM APIs.
• Ability to independently implement, debug, evaluate and maintain research code or AI applications.
• Good software engineering practices, including Git, testing, documentation and code review.

Responsibilities

• Research and development: Review literature, design experiments and implement machine learning or LLM-based methods with researchers.
• AI engineering: Develop and maintain AI applications involving LLM agents, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), APIs, databases and evaluation pipelines.
• Intern supervision: Assign and clarify tasks, review code and experimental results, troubleshoot problems and provide regular feedback.
• Project coordination: Translate project objectives into milestones, track progress and help ensure timely, high-quality deliverables.
• Evaluation and quality: Build reproducible experiments, tests and metrics to assess model performance, system reliability and research findings.
• Documentation and communication: Maintain code and experimental records; contribute to research papers, reports, presentations and technical discussions

Skills

Python

AI frameworks

Code debugging

Git & Testing

Technical leadership

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/AI/Data Science/Financial Engineering

Tools

PyTorch

Hugging Face

LLM APIs

Job description

Research Assistant, AI Research and Engineering

University-Level Unit: Asian Institute of Digital Finance Faculty/Department-Level Unit: FinTech Research Employee Category: Research Staff Location_ONB: Kent Ridge Campus Posting Start Date: 06/11/2026

Overview

Join the Asian Institute of Digital Finance (AIDF) at NUS to develop AI research and applications in finance. We arelooking for a Research Assistant to support projects involving machine learning, large language models (LLMs), AIagents and financial data analysis. You will work with researchers to translate ideas into experiments and workingsystems, while coordinating and mentoring research and engineering interns. This is a hands‑on technical rolecombining research, engineering and project coordination.

Responsibilities

• Research and development: Review literature, design experiments and implement machine learning or LLM-based methods with researchers.
• AI engineering: Develop and maintain AI applications involving LLM agents, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), APIs, databases and evaluation pipelines.
• Intern supervision: Assign and clarify tasks, review code and experimental results, troubleshoot problems and provide regular feedback.
• Project coordination: Translate project objectives into milestones, track progress and help ensure timely, high-quality deliverables.
• Evaluation and quality: Build reproducible experiments, tests and metrics to assess model performance, system reliability and research findings.
• Documentation and communication: Maintain code and experimental records; contribute to research papers, reports, presentations and technical discussions

Requirements

Required

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Data Science, Financial Engineering or a related discipline
• Strong Python programming skills and hands-on experience with machine learning or LLM-based applications.
• Familiarity with AI development frameworks and tools, such as PyTorch, Hugging Face or LLM APIs.
• Ability to independently implement, debug, evaluate and maintain research code or AI applications.
• Good software engineering practices, including Git, testing, documentation and code review.
• Strong organisation, communication and critical-thinking skills; ability to guide junior team members and verify AI-generated work

Preferred

• Experience in academic research, research engineering or AI application development.
• Experience with LLM agents, RAG, model evaluation, full-stack development or financial data.
• Experience mentoring students or coordinating technical projects; publications or demonstrable AI projects.
• Prior financial domain expertise is not required.

Enquiries: Dr Kelvin Koa | [e-mail]

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