Advanced Research Engineer

We are looking for a highly skilled Advanced Research Engineer to design, develop, and deliver advanced AI and machine learning solutions for real-world industrial challenges. You’ll work at the forefront of generative AI, RAG systems, agentic models, and AI assurance, taking ownership of complex technical projects from concept through to deployment.

As an ARE you will work with multi-disciplinary teams using their domain knowledge to deliver innovative solutions aligned with the MTC members and customers challenges and help drive the research and innovation roadmap to support UK Industry.

This role is ideal for someone who wants to stay deeply hands-on, lead technically, and contribute to the organisation’s research direction.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the technical delivery of advanced ML and AI projects including regression, classification, segmentation, genAI, RAG, and agentic workflows.
• Design system architectures, research plans, and experimental methodologies for high impact projects.
• Translate research outputs into modular, reusable components and demonstrators.
• Contribute to the organisation’s trustworthy AI and AI assurance research, developing methods, tools, and best practice guidance.
• Maintain and enhance key AI demonstrators, ensuring reliability and continuous improvement.
• Provide technical leadership within multidisciplinary project teams, guiding engineers and contributing to project planning.
• Support business development by contributing technical insight to customer discussions, proposals, and collaborative R&D bids.
• Influence the organisation’s AI capability roadmap through research insights and technology scouting.
• Engage with internal and external stakeholders to share findings, present research, and support decision making.
• Participate in cross organisation initiatives such as the AI Validation Network, contributing technical expertise to advance UK AI assurance practice.
• Maintain relevance and stay up to date with emerging research, tools, and technologies — and bring them into active project work.

Required Skills:

• Strong Python expertise (numpy, pandas, TensorFlow/PyTorch/Keras, LangChain/LangGraph).
• Deep understanding of ML/AI methodologies, model development, and evaluation.
• Experience with Linux, Docker, Docker-Compose, and Kubernetes.
• Ability to design and deploy REST APIs using Flask or FastAPI.
• Strong ability to interpret technical requirements and translate them into actionable research and engineering tasks.
• Excellent communication skills for explaining complex concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Knowledge of trustworthy AI frameworks, AI assurance principles, and testing methodologies beyond performance metrics.

Nice to Have

• Experience with AI monitoring and observability tools (Arize Phoenix, Langfuse, RAGAS, TruLens).
• Cloud experience (Azure, AWS).
• Data visualisation and dashboarding tools.
• Experience producing system diagrams and interface documentation.
• Exposure to MLOps, CI/CD, or model deployment pipelines.
• Lightweight UI development (Streamlit, Gradio).
• Customer facing or business development experience.
• Experience of technically leading projects.

The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) was established in 2010 as an independent Research & Technology Organisation (RTO) with the objective of bridging the gap between academia and industry – often referred to as ‘the valley of death’.

It represents one of the largest public sector investments in UK manufacturing and, after four years of planning and a 16 month build, the facility opened at Ansty Park in Coventry at the end of 2011.

In December 2011, there were 16 industrial members, 44 staff and just a few key pieces of equipment in the ‘workshop’.

Over the following seven years the MTC’s rapid growth has seen the expansion of our campus with the construction of three more facilities, including the opening of the Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre and the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing.

Our role has also increased to cover not only R&D but also Training, Advanced Manufacturing Management and Factory Design.

We now have over 700 talented employees working with us.

During this time we have helped hundreds of companies across a range of industries and over 100 of them have become members of the MTC.