The Institute's Defence & National Security programme builds capability that gets used, not just published. We are creating a new Applied Engineering team to add to the delivery engine behind that: a cross-functional group of software engineers, data scientists, and data engineers, who take research from across the Institute and academia to turn it into deployable tools that analysts and decision-makers rely on. The team's work will make sense of disparate data streams and produce the pipelines and tooling that let people make real-world decisions with confidence.
ROLE PURPOSE
We are looking for a Lead Applied Engineer to be the technical anchor of this team from day one. This is a hands-on role: you will spend most of your time designing, building and deploying You will be hired alongside the first three engineers, so you start with colleagues around you rather than a team that exists only on paper. Strategic direction comes from senior Institute staff; the day-to-day technical leadership of the team is yours. You will work directly with stakeholders to identify the highest-impact problems and lead the team from project design to delivery into constrained environments. You will set the technical standards for the team, leading by example.
The role sits at the intersection of engineering delivery, solution architecture and applied AI. It suits a strong engineer with leadership experience who is comfortable in fast-moving environments, is motivated by direct operational impact and enjoys engaging closely with stakeholders.
HOW YOU WILL MAKE AN IMPACT
- Design and build: take Defence problems from requirement through architecture to working, deployable systems, and stay close to the code throughout.
- Work directly with Defence customers to draw out requirements and translate them into technical solutions that operate within the constraints of the deployment environment.
- Establish how the team builds from day one: secure development lifecycle, MLOps and deployment patterns, evaluation and assurance of AI systems, code quality and documentation.
- Act as the bridge between Turing research and operational delivery: for example, assessing research outputs for maturity and exploitability & deciding what to prioritise for delivery
- Review and challenge the team's technical work, unblock delivery and make the calls that keep it moving
- Provide day-to-day technical leadership and management for a small cross-functional team
- Provide technical quality assurance review of the Turing policy research team’s outputs
ABOUT YOU
- Strong, current, hands-on software engineering – architecture, secure development, testing, CI/CD – with the credibility to design, build and review production systems and to challenge the team's technical work.
- Proven ability to translate customer requirements into a technical design that is buildable, secure and deliverable within the constraints of the deployment environment.
- Experience providing technical leadership to/in a multidisciplinary engineering team (software, data, data science, platform) through the full delivery lifecycle, including some line management responsibility.
- Experience working at the research–engineering interface: assessing academic or research outputs for maturity and exploitability, and deciding what to harden and productionise.
- Ability to communicate and defend technical judgement clearly with senior stakeholders under scrutiny, and to revise it when the evidence warrants.
- Hands-on experience productionising AI systems – including classical ML pipelines and agentic/LLM-based systems – from prototype through to assured, monitored and maintained services.
Please see the Job Description for a full breakdown of the role and person specification
APPLICATION PROCEDURE
If you are interested in this opportunity, please click the apply button below. You will need to register on the applicant portal and complete the application form, information required is outlined clearly in the full Job Description. If you have questions about the role or would like to apply using a different format, please contact us at [email protected].
As this role requires eligibility for Developed Vetting (DV) clearance, it is an essential part of the application process that you include the following information as part of your cover letter:
- Your current nationality
- Your nationality at birth
- Other nationality (include dual nationality if applicable)
- Confirmation that you have been residing in the UK for the past 5 years (if you haven’t, please provide details of when and where you resided and the reason)
- Country where you were born.
- County in which you were born.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
This full-time post is offered on a permanent basis. The annual salary range is £69,000 – £82,500 plus excellent benefits, including flexible working and family friendly policies, Employee-only benefits guide | The Alan Turing Institute
Given the close working relationship with government partners, this role requires regular on-site presence with Defence partners in London 3 days per week, with possible occasional travel to other sites in the UK, in addition to the Institute's standard office attendance expectations.
Eligibility for DV clearance is an essential requirement for this role. Eligibility criteria and further information on the process can be found on the UK Government security vetting website. Please note that we require you to provide essential information in your cover letter in order to progress your application. Details of this are in the Application Procedure section.
Please note, if these details are not provided, we will be unable to progress with your application for this role.
EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
We value diversity of background, experience, and perspective, and are proud to be an inclusive employer. We warmly encourage applications from all backgrounds, particularly from groups currently under-represented in our sector. If you feel passionate about this role but don’t meet every single requirement, please apply – we recognise that great candidates may bring strengths beyond the criteria listed.
We are committed to making sure our recruitment process is accessible and inclusive. This includes making reasonable adjustments for candidates who have a disability or long-term condition. Please contact us at [email protected] to advise us how we can assist you.
Please note all offers of employment are subject to obtaining and retaining the right to work in the UK and satisfactory pre-employment security screening which includes a DBS Check. Full details on the pre-employment screening process can be requested from [email protected].