Applied AI Engineer

Arondite is a defence technology company building the foundational software and AI to power the autonomous age. Our aim is to revolutionise the way organisations collaborate with sensors, robots and autonomous systems and use the data they generate. We are driven by our determination to help defend our collective democratic values and by our strong belief that an elite group of engineers can make a big difference. We are ambitious, well-funded and building for the long-term.

If you are motivated by our mission and if you want to be part of a growing team of outstanding engineers, then we want to hear from you.

You will join Arondite at a pivotal moment in the company’s journey. Our company’s future will be built on a foundation of exceptional engineers, people who find high-impact and technically challenging work engaging and exciting, and who consistently deliver outsized impact. You will collaborate with other brilliant minds to solve some of the world’s hardest and most important engineering problems.

You will have ownership and autonomy from Day One. There is a flat hierarchy at Arondite. From your first day, you will directly influence the design, functionality, and direction of Arondite’s product offering. We hire the best people and give them extremely high levels of autonomy; the sky is the limit for an individual with the right ambition.

Requirements

Arondite is looking for an Applied AI Engineer with proficiency in robotics and/or computer vision. You will ideally have 4+ years of relevant experience researching and applying modern ML in areas such as scene understanding, multi-modal sensing, control and path planning, or vision-language understanding.

Your responsibilities would include:

• Training and evaluating robust and performant deep learning models to solve real-world challenges
• Integration of these models with hardware assets, guiding not only signal processing decisions but the sensor stack that our systems may rely on
• Working directly with mechanical and software engineers to enable growing autonomy in the most demanding environments
• Inventing novel capabilities and optimising existing approaches whilst remaining aware of ethical implications of your engineering decisions

You should have the following skills or experience:

• Hold an MSc in computer science, machine learning, robotics, engineering or related fields
• Enjoy working at the cutting edge of computer vision and robotics research, with a passion for identifying and implementing novel solutions to hard problems
• Can write clean and maintainable code in Python, Rust, C/C++ or Java, and have experience with frameworks such as PyTorch, Tensorflow or JAX
• Are a strong communicator, can document your work effectively and present it to relevant stake-holders and users
• Are excited about the chance to take real ownership for creating solutions as part of a high-performance, mission-focused team

Ideally, you would also meet some or all of the following criteria:

• PhD in computer vision, machine learning, robotics, or related fields, and have authored publications in top-tier journals and conferences (eg, CVPR, NeurIPS, ICLR, ICCV, ICRA, IROS, TPAMI)
• Have experience working with MLOps infrastructure or deploying AI models to production, including the associated monitoring, testing and quality assurance (QA)
• Have an understanding of different sensor modalities, their trade-offs, and relevant methods for processing their outputs to drive performance in challenging scenarios
• Created state of the art AI for resource-constrained edge devices, including optimisation for deployment on this type of hardware
• Experience with synthetic data generation or simulation, or collection and management of large real-world datasets

Note: We want Arondite to bring together individuals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. We don't expect everyone to have experience across each of these areas. Please apply even if you only partially fulfil this list.

Security clearance

We believe in working closely with defence customers. As a result, this role will require the individual to hold a clearance or be willing to undergo UK security vetting to Security Check (SC) or above. This normally requires having continuous residency in the UK for at least 5 years.

Office vs Hybrid

We are focused on building a positive, collaborative engineering-driven culture. As a result, we believe in making the office a friendly, comfortable and fun place to be and we try to work from the office where possible. Of course, there are times when it makes sense for you to work from home and that's OK. You may also need to travel to visit customers, depending on your role. But in general you should only apply to join Arondite if you're excited to come into the office and work in person by default.

Outline Application Process:

Generally, our interview process comprises the following:

1. Complete the application form
2. Initial Teams call (30 mins)
3. In-person technical interview (1-2 hours)
4. Final interview with a Founder (30 mins)

Benefits

• Highly competitive base salary
• Generous equity in EMI Options in a well-funded and growing startup
• 7% employer pension contribution
• A great office in Old Street offering wellness workshops and community events
• Free breakfast and lunch every day; free pizza and beers weekly
• The ability to work with and learn from exceptional colleagues with deep defence industry knowledge and academic excellence
• Any resources and equipment that you need to do your job in a world-class way
• Health and dental insurance
• Cycle to work scheme
• Relocation support
• Visa sponsorship for extremely strong candidates