Senior AI Research Engineer (NLP)

Placements24; Sandton; Hybrid; ZAR 1,200,000 - 2,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, vision insurance

Retirement plan

Professional development support

Flexible schedule & generous PTO

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Senior AI Research Engineer specializing in NLP to join a fully remote engineering team. You will design and deploy advanced NLP models for tasks like translation, summarization, sentiment analysis, and conversational AI, while collaborating with a global team.

The role requires a strong NLP background, 5+ years of experience, and expertise in PyTorch or TensorFlow. Remote work and international collaboration are core to this opportunity.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree with an emphasis on NLP.
• 5+ years of hands-on NLP development and deployment.
• Proficiency with PyTorch or TensorFlow and NLP libraries.
• Experience with LLMs and cloud ML platforms.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and optimize NLP models and algorithms.
• Train and evaluate NLP models on large text datasets.
• Collaborate with product and software teams to ship NLP features.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to research.

Skills

NLP expertise

Python

Problem solving

Independent worker

Education

Master's or Ph.D. in CS/AI/NLP

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Hugging Face Transformers

spaCy

NLTK

Job description

About the Role

Our client is a globally recognized leader in AI research and development, and they are seeking a highly motivated Senior AI Research Engineer specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to join their fully remote engineering team. This role is ideal for a driven individual passionate about creating intelligent systems that understand and generate human language. You will be instrumental in designing, developing, and deploying advanced NLP models and applications, contributing to state-of-the-art solutions in areas such as machine translation, text summarization, sentiment analysis, and conversational AI. This is a unique opportunity to work on challenging problems at the cutting edge of AI, collaborating with a world-class team from anywhere in the world. Our client champions a remote-first culture, valuing autonomy, innovation, and continuous learning.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and optimize advanced NLP models and algorithms, including deep learning architectures (e.g., Transformers, LSTMs, RNNs).
• Develop robust solutions for tasks such as text classification, named entity recognition, question answering, and dialogue systems.
• Process and analyze large-scale text datasets to train and evaluate NLP models.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including product managers, software engineers, and other researchers to integrate NLP capabilities into products and services.
• Conduct research to identify and implement novel techniques for improving NLP model performance, efficiency, and robustness.
• Stay current with the latest advancements in NLP, machine learning, and artificial intelligence through literature review and participation in relevant communities.
• Contribute to the development of internal tools and frameworks to support NLP research and development efforts.
• Write clean, efficient, and well‑documented code, adhering to software engineering best practices.
• Effectively communicate complex technical concepts and findings to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to the growth of the NLP team's technical expertise.

Requirements

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Linguistics, or a related field with a strong focus on NLP.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience in developing and deploying NLP models and applications in a professional setting.
• Expertise in at least one major deep learning framework (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Proficiency in Python and relevant NLP libraries (e.g., NLTK, spaCy, Hugging Face Transformers).
• Strong understanding of fundamental NLP concepts, algorithms, and evaluation metrics.
• Experience with large language models (LLMs) and their applications.
• Proven ability to work independently, manage multiple projects, and deliver results in a remote environment.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and critical thinking skills.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and MLOps practices is a plus.

Benefits

• This fully remote position offers a highly competitive salary and bonus structure, commensurate with your experience and contributions.
• Employees enjoy comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance, as well as a generous retirement savings plan.
• We provide substantial support for professional development, including access to cutting‑edge online learning resources, conference sponsorships, and opportunities for research publications.
• A flexible work schedule and generous paid time off policy ensure an excellent work‑life balance.
• You will join a globally distributed, highly skilled team, working on challenging and impactful AI projects that define the future of human‑computer interaction.
• This role fully embraces the advantages of remote work and global collaboration.