RL Research Working Student

Who we are

Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership, so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards. 

As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously. 

We are an ambitious and committed team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers. We are looking for mission-driven people to join our European teams – and apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology in defence, its benefits, and its ethical implications. 

The role

• As a working student in RL research, you will push the current understanding how RL can add value to military problems, especially in the domain of planning, reasoning and autonomy

• You will bridge fundamental and applied research with concrete implementations for real-world military problems

• Be part of a highly talented, boundary-pushing RL team and work with globally renowned AI experts

The day-to-day

• Research relevant papers in the areas of AI (in particular RL) and military applications of AI/RL

• Conceptualise military applications of these technologies

• Understand advantages and disadvantages of different algorithmic approaches for those use cases

• Derive requirements regarding software architectures and simulation environments

• Summarise findings in clearly understandable documents

• Contribute towards the implementation of the most promising concepts

You should apply if you

• B.Sc. in Computer Science, Math, or similar

• Currently pursuing a M.Sc. in Computer Science, Math or similar with excellent grades

• Demonstrated theoretical and practical experience in RL

• Proficient in Python

• Experience with AI frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, NumPy

• Experience with RL frameworks like OpenAI gym, stable baselines, Ray/RLlib

• Experience with software and infrastructure frameworks like Gitlab CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes, Matplotlib

• Ability to work reliably and independently

• Business level proficiency in German language 

Note: The above bullet points describe the ideal candidate. None of us matched all of these at once when we first joined Helsing. We encourage you to apply even if you believe you meet only part of our wish list.

Nice to have

• Published a paper, ideally regarding applied RL at a top-tier conference or journal

• Currently pursuing a PhD

• Experience with large-scale RL projects

• Experience in the military domain and problems

• Experience with working in a fast-paced, high-scale start-up

Join Helsing and work with world-leading experts in their fields 

• Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns. 

• The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world. 

• Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defence industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward. 

• In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts.  

• We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about. 

What we offer

• A focus on outcomes

• Competitive compensation 

• Regular company events and all-hands to bring together employees as one team across Europe

 

Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity. Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.

  Helsing's Candidate Privacy and Confidentiality Regime can be found here.