AI R&D Algorithm Developer

Location: Cheadle, United Kingdom

Thales people provide armed forces customers with operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defence mission systems solutions at land, sea, and air. Our platforms extend across the battlespace including Above and Sonar, Electronic Combat, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems. Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across the major industries of Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part-time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Job Title: AI Algorithm Developer

Location: Cheadle Heath or Templecombe

Employment Type: Full-time/part-time

Reports To: GSS Team leader and AI team lead

Overview

Can your AI/ML knowledge and technical skills help to increase the security of the UK? Can you innovate to solve complex problems and provide the UK’s armed forces with AI powered, state of the art capabilities?

About Us

Thales people provide armed forces customers with operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defence mission systems solutions at land, sea, and air. Our critical mission systems extend across the battlespace in the fields of electronic combat systems, airborne surveillance and reconnaissance systems, above water and under water combat systems. This career opportunity is focussed on the underwater battlespace. The underwater environment is the most demanding environment on earth. The depths of the oceans have been explored less than space. Our systems produce huge amounts of data every day and we are looking for innovative people who can help us exploit it with AI/ML to provide an operational advantage to the UK’s security capability.

The opportunity

General Sonar Studies (GSS) are a small research group working within the larger Thales organisation. We develop the techniques and algorithms that allow us to detect very quiet sources of noise at very long distances within the noisy ocean. Our know-how allows our systems to determine where the noise source is, what it is, where it is going, what it is doing, and even what colour it is and what it might do next. We are applying AI/ML techniques to our systems to enhance the state of the art and push the boundaries of what is possible.

Key Responsibilities:

• Research & Innovation: Stay updated with the latest research in AI and machine learning technologies relevant to our products, bringing new tools, frameworks, and methods to the team.
• AI Development: Conduct research, development and evaluation of optimum AI/ML solutions applied to Thales sonar products. Develop state of the art, proof of concept prototypes to demonstrate the art of the possible.
• Data Curation: Collect, clean, and pre-process structured and unstructured data from diverse sources to ensure high-quality inputs for model training and evaluation.
• Customer and End User Engagement: Support demonstrations, presentations and training of customers and end users to build their understanding of and trust in deployed AI solutions.
• System Deployment: Work closely with system engineers, operability specialists and domain experts to integrate AI solutions into operational systems.

Skills and experience:

• Knowledge of current AI/ML research, concepts, tools and techniques is essential.
• Experience in developing AI solutions to meet defined requirements, preferably for real-time applications.
• Experience in problem solving and the ability to effectively work alone and as part of a team.
• Experience in Python and associated machine learning libraries or equivalent knowledge is highly desirable.
• Matlab experience is desirable.
• Experience of technical report writing, presentation preparation and generation and presentation/communication skills for papers, seminars, conferences is highly desirable.

Security Clearance statement

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a Non-ITAR country may be considered. Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance. To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

Application Process

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