Data Science Innovation Manager

Data Science Innovation Manager 
Location: Waterford, IE (Flexible working options within IE) | Type: Permanent | Start: ASAP | Hours: Full-time | Salary: Commensurate with experience 

Join us at the frontier of AI innovation. We're seeking a Data Science Innovation Manager in Ireland, to lead the discovery, validation, and scaling of next-gen data solutions that drive revenue, efficiency, and customer impact. This is your opportunity to shape the future of data science in a mission-driven organisation committed to ethical, responsible AI. 

Who we are  

Trilateral Research builds Responsible AI (RAI) products and delivers services that empower organisations to develop and deploy AI responsibly. Our products and services are grounded in over 15 years of pioneering research and methodological innovation. Our award-winning solutions tackle the most complex, sensitive social issues facing our societies today, including child safeguarding, public health improvement and climate action.  

What you will do 

Key responsibilities include but not limited to: 

• Lead Innovation Strategy: Set the roadmap for exploratory research and emerging tech applications, including Gen AI, LLMs, and privacy-preserving techniques. 

• Drive Innovation & Research Impact: Translate cutting-edge research into pilot projects and production-ready tools that differentiate the business. 

• Foster & Manage Excellence: Build and lead a high-performing team, championing technical depth, collaboration, and responsible AI practices. 

• Engage Externally: Represent the company at key events, publish impactful work, and help position us as thought leaders in AI. 

• Accelerate Business Value: Scout opportunities, contribute to proposals, and work with internal and external partners to commercialise innovation. 

Requirements

What you bring 

Essential experience & skills  

• Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, ML, NLP, Applied Mathematics, or related field. 

• 7+ years in applied data science/ML, with 3+ years leading GenAI or LLM-focused projects. 

• 2+ years managing data science teams, ideally in research or innovation settings. 

• Peer-reviewed publications or industry white papers in top-tier venues (e.g. NeurIPS, ACL, ICML). 

• Proven delivery of LLM-based prototypes or internal tools that reached adoption. 

• Skilled in explaining complex AI/GenAI concepts to non-technical audiences. 

• Deep experience across the ML lifecycle: ideation to deployment. 

• Proficient in PyTorch, Hugging Face; familiar with tools like vLLM, DeepSpeed, Ray. 

• Experience with vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Milvus, pgvector). 

• Comfortable using managed ML platforms (AWS SageMaker, GCP Vertex AI, Azure ML). 

• Able to manage cost-efficient distributed training and inference. 

• Strong grasp of experimentation: A/B testing, power analysis, reproducibility tools (e.g. DVC, MLflow, Weights & Biases). 

• Strong written and verbal communication; able to engage stakeholders at all levels. 

• Strategic thinker with ability to turn abstract ideas into action plans. 

• Inclusive leadership style with a track record of developing diverse talent. 

• Effective at fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration and constructive debate. 

• Excellent organisational and agile prioritisation skills. 

Desirable experience & skills 

• Passionate about responsible and ethical AI. 

• Facilitates design-thinking or impact workshops; coaches through ambiguity and change. 

• Skilled at navigating and coaching successful global, remote-first teams.  

• Drives cultural shifts toward experimentation and responsible AI adoption. 

• Knowledge of AI regulation (e.g., EU AI Act), risk frameworks (e.g., NIST AI RMF), and documentation standards (e.g., model/system cards). 

• Familiarity with VLMs and speech-language models (e.g., CLIP, LLaVA, Whisper, AudioLM). 

• Experience with LLM compression methods (e.g., pruning, quantisation, distillation) and on-device inference (e.g., MLC-LLM, GGUF). 

• Understanding of AI safety: fairness, transparency, causal modelling, AI auditing, red teaming. 

• Skilled in identifying IP and partnership/licensing opportunities with academia/startups. 

• Certifications in AI/ML (e.g., AWS ML Specialty, NVIDIA Deep Learning). 

• Track record of AI innovation in regulated industries (finance, health, telco, public sector). 

• Active contributor to GenAI libraries or communities; frequent speaker at meetups or events. 

What we offer 

• Competitive salary & enhanced pension (based on service) 

• Enhanced holiday entitlement increasing with tenure 

• Company sick pay & family-friendly leave 

• Flexible hours & remote-first working 

• Continuous career development 

How to apply  

Application requirements: Please submit your CV and complete all application questions listed, to have your application considered. References will be required prior to appointment and candidates must be eligible to work in the country the role requires.   

Application deadline: Monday 18th August - 12pm IST.  

Timelines: Our hiring team will be continuously reviewing applications as they are submitted. We receive a high volume of applications, and we will only be able to progress applicants that meet all the essential requirements listed in this description.  

Key information  

We are an equal opportunities employer and positively encourage applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates, regardless of their age, sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital/civil partnership status, or pregnancy and maternity. 

At Trilateral Research, we value privacy and data protection rights. We have a longstanding data protection culture and promote robust ethical standards in data management and research ethics. Please read our Recruitment Privacy Notice in relation to our recruitment activities before submitting your application to work with us.