Senior AI Engineer (Autonomy & Machine Learning)

ALTEN is a global engineering and technology consultancy operating across over 35 countries worldwide. We partner with industry leaders across sectors including Aeronautics, Aerospace, Defence, Naval, Automotive, Energy, Rail, IT and many more to deliver innovative engineering solutions that drive technological advancement & support sustainable transformation.

Our teams of passionate and agile engineers work on cutting-edge projects that shape the future of technology and sustainability. At ALTEN, we empower talented engineers to innovate, solve complex challenges, and deliver impactful solutions that build tomorrow’s world—today.

Join us and start building tomorrow’s world today!

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.

Why join us? 

We bring together entrepreneurial, tech-driven people to deliver innovative solutions for leading companies.

At ALTEN, you’ll work on exciting projects, supported by ongoing learning, mentoring, and clear career development tailored to your goals.

Join a passionate team and help build tomorrow, today.

In short you get: 

• A personalised career path and a rewarding management style 
• A huge diversity of engineering projects and industries
• Private Medical Insurance
• Cycle & Tech Scheme 
• Employee assistance programme
• Life insurance & Pension Scheme
• Social atmosphere, regular gatherings & team buildings
• Flexible way of working (role dependent)

We are proud to support the Armed Forces Covenant & actively encourage applications from members of the Armed Forces community, including veterans, reservists, service leavers, and military spouses/partners. We recognise the value of military skills and experience and are committed to ensuring that no applicant is unfairly disadvantaged during our recruitment and selection processes. 

ALTEN is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace and values the strength that comes from a global mix of backgrounds and perspectives. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates, regardless of background or protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know. 

This role may require you to have or be willing to go through Security Clearance. As part of the onboarding process candidates will be asked to complete a Baseline Personnel Security Standard; details of the evidence required to apply may be found on the government website Gov.UK. If you are unable to meet this and any associated criteria, then your employment may be delayed, or rejected . Details of this will be discussed with you at interview.