Senior AI Engineer (Autonomy & Machine Learning)

Are you passionate about applying AI to solve complex real-world challenges in safety-critical environments? As an AI Engineer within ALTEN, you'll play a key role in developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities that support high-impact programmes across the defence and aerospace sectors. Working as part of a multidisciplinary engineering team, you'll design, build and deploy robust AI solutions, helping customers unlock the value of their data while driving innovation across advanced autonomy, machine learning and intelligent systems. This is an opportunity to work across the full AI lifecycle, from early-stage concept development and experimentation through to deployment of production-ready solutions in mission-critical environments. Location: Bristol / Crawley / Glasgow (Hybrid Working) On-site Requirement: Hybrid working, with site attendance based on project requirements Seniority: 5+ years of relevant experience Security Clearance: Candidates must be willing and eligible to obtain SC clearance. Key Responsibilities - Design and develop AI and machine learning solutions to address complex business and engineering challenges. - Translate customer and stakeholder requirements into scalable AI architectures, technical designs and measurable outcomes. - Develop, train, evaluate and optimise machine learning models across areas such as computer vision, NLP/LLMs, time-series analytics and autonomous systems. - Build robust data processing, training and evaluation pipelines, including feature engineering, experiment tracking and model validation. - Collaborate with software, systems, cyber and data engineering teams to productionise AI capabilities and integrate them into operational systems. - Champion Responsible AI principles, ensuring solutions meet security, safety, explainability and regulatory requirements. - Develop reusable AI components, frameworks and reference implementations to accelerate future project delivery. - Support technical demonstrations, bids, proofs of concept and customer workshops. Required Skills - Strong Python development skills with experience using AI/ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Scikit-Learn and Hugging Face. - Proven experience developing and deploying machine learning solutions, including deep learning, computer vision, NLP/LLMs or time-series analytics. - Experience working with autonomy frameworks such as ROS2 and integrating AI into autonomous or intelligent systems. - Strong understanding of software engineering best practices including CI/CD, testing, version control and code quality standards. - Experience with data processing and analysis tools including Pandas, NumPy, SQL and model deployment technologies such as FastAPI, ONNX or TorchScript. Soft Skills & Collaboration - Strong communication skills with the ability to engage technical and non-technical stakeholders. - Collaborative approach with experience working effectively within multidisciplinary engineering teams. - Proactive, delivery-focused mindset with the ability to influence outcomes and drive innovation. Required Qualifications - Bachelor's or Master's degree in Engineering, or relevant technical military background with equivalent experience. - Commercial AI/ML development experience. - Experience deploying machine learning solutions into operational environments. - Strong collaboration and stakeholder engagement skills. Desirable Skills - Experience with MLOps, MLflow, Weights & Biases or similar experiment management platforms. - Knowledge of cloud-based AI platforms such as AWS, Azure or GCP and containerisation technologies including Docker. - Experience with explainable AI, adversarial robustness, privacy-preserving techniques or other Responsible AI practices. - Proficiency in C++ and development within safety-critical software environments. - Contributions to open-source projects, technical publications, patents or advanced research activities.