Staff/ Senior Data Scientist, Multimodal AI, AI Practice

Government Technology Agency; Singapore; On-site; SGD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work arrangements

Employee wellness programmes

Job summary

GovTech is seeking a Lead/Senior Data Scientist (Multimodal AI) to explore and apply AI capabilities for government use cases. You will drive frontier research across vision, video, audio, and documents, and translate findings into impactful agency solutions.

You will lead a small team, design benchmarks, and build prototypes for government data challenges while navigating on-premise vs cloud deployments and cost considerations.

Qualifications

• Degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI/ML, Engineering, or related field.
• 5+ years applied ML/data science, with depth in at least one non-text modality — computer vision, video understanding, audio/speech, or generative image/video.
• Foundational knowledge of ML fundamentals, including model training, evaluation methodology, and experiment design.
• Exposure to multimodal AI systems, vision-language models, and generative AI — including fine-tuning (e.g. LoRA) and synthetic data generation.
• Working knowledge of cloud solution architecture on GCP and/or AWS.
• Comfortable using AI-assisted development tools to accelerate work.
• Curious and outcome-oriented with deep problem-solving.
• Comfortable with ambiguity in government AI work.
• Experience leading a small team of junior data scientists.

Responsibilities

• Experiment with state-of-the-art multimodal models and evaluate applicability to government use cases.
• Design, build, and run evaluations and benchmarks for AI models on real-world tasks.
• Build prototypes and proof-of-concept solutions for agency engagements.
• Stay current with applied AI developments and assess practical government applications.
• Support development of multimodal AI showcase and prototyping platforms with deployment considerations.

Skills

Multimodal AI

Cloud architecture

AI-assisted tools

Strong communicator

Hands-on experimentation

Vision/video/audio data

Education

Degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI/ML, Engineering

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

OpenAI Codex

Job description

The Government Technology Agency (GovTech) is the lead agency driving Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives and public sector digital transformation. As the Centre of Excellence for Infocomm Technology and Smart Systems (ICT & SS), GovTech develops the Singapore Government’s capabilities in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Application Development, Smart City Technology, Digital Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity.

AtGovTech, we offer you a purposeful career to make lives better. We empower our people to master their craft through continuous and robust learning and development opportunities all year round. OurGovTechiesembody our Agile,Boldand Collaborative values to deliver impactful solutions.

GovTech aims to transform the delivery of Government digital services by taking an "outside-in" view, putting citizens and businesses at the heart of everything we do.

Play a part in Singapore’s vision to build a Smart Nation and embark on your meaningful journey to build tech for public good. Join us to advance our mission and shape your future with us today!

Learn more aboutGovTechat tech.gov.sg.

What you will be working on

AI Practice is the AI R&D and capability development arm of GovTech's Government Technology Office (GTO). As a Senior Data Scientist (Multimodal AI) on the Multimodal AI Squad, your work will span two broad areas:

Frontier Exploration and Evaluation Systematically scanning, experimenting with, and interpreting the latest AI developments across vision, video, audio, and document modalities. This includes producing fast-response technical explorations when meaningful new capabilities emerge, as well as deeper assessments of maturing areas. The emphasis is on getting your hands dirty. This is empirical work, not editorial.

Agency Engagement and Transformation Translating frontier AI capabilities into real outcomes for government agencies. The squad builds AI capabilities through rapid experimentation and works with agencies to identify and test promising capabilities against their own data and use cases, with viable solutions graduating onward for productisation. You will support the journey from discovery through experimentation and prototyping, often as the squad's technical point of contact with an agency.

Day to day, you can expect to:

• Experiment with state-of-the-art multimodal models (VLMs, MLLMs, diffusion models, speech and audio models) and evaluate their applicability to government use cases and strategy
• Design, build, and run evaluations and benchmarks for AI models on real-world Singapore government tasks — including constructing the underlying datasets, defining metrics and scoring, and standing behind results that inform agency and vendor decisions
• Build functional prototypes and proof-of-concept solutions for agency engagements spanning smart city video analytics, document intelligence, generative media, and content authentication
• Stay current with the latest developments in applied AI and assess what translates from research settings to practical government applications
• Support the development of our multimodal AI showcase and prototyping platforms, and advise on deployment considerations such as on-premise vs cloud, hardware, and cost
• Produce technical write-ups and contribute to knowledge artefacts such as handbooks, reports, and evaluation findings

What we are looking for

We are looking for a Lead/ Senior Data Scientist who sits at the intersection of exploration and applied AI. Someone who can pick up a new model or technique, understand how it works, and turn it into something users can actually try — and who can then show, credibly, how well it works.

• Degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI/ML, Engineering, or a related field
• 5+ years applied ML/data science, with meaningful depth in at least one non-text modality — computer vision, video understanding, audio/speech, or generative image/video
• Solid understanding of machine learning fundamentals, including model training, evaluation methodology, and experiment design — comfort with sampling, uncertainty, and metric selection is a strong plus
• Foundational knowledge of computer vision concepts and/or hands-on experience working with image, video, or audio data
• Exposure to multimodal AI systems, vision-language models, and generative AI — including fine-tuning (e.g. LoRA) and synthetic data generation
• Practical sense for running models: GPU/VRAM constraints, open-weight vs commercial API trade-offs, and the cost implications of each
• Working knowledge of cloud solution architecture on GCP and/or AWS — able to stand up and structure prototypes using managed compute, storage, and model-serving services
• Comfortable using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, OpenAI Codex) to accelerate your work
• Treats AI as a collaborator, using it to learn new libraries, debug, and move faster — and re-tests frontier model capability first-hand rather than relying on secondhand claims
• Curious and outcome-oriented. You enjoy going deep on a problem but ultimately care about whether it works in practice
• Comfortable with ambiguity. Government AI work means scoping problems that aren't always well-defined, running several workstreams at once, and accepting that not every prototype ships
• Comfortable leading a small team of junior data scientists — setting technical direction, breaking down problems, giving feedback, and growing capability alongside your own delivery.
• Strong communicator. You can explain what you built and why it matters to both technical peers and non-technical agency stakeholders — including turning a metric into a recommendation someone can act on

Our employee benefits are based on a total rewards approach, offering a holistic and market-competitive suite of perks. These include leave benefits to meet your work-life needs and employee wellness programmes.

We champion flexible work arrangements (subject to your job role) and trust that you will manage your own time to deliver your best, wherever you are, and whatever works best for you.

Learn more about life insideGovTechat go.gov.sg/GovTechCareers.

Stay connected with us on social media at go.gov.sg/ConnectWithGovTech