Staff Applied Scientist Applied Science

Overview

At UnlikelyAI, we are building the future of AI: one that is reliable, accurate and transparent. Our neurosymbolic technology harnesses the power of LLMs and generative AI, and combines it with classical symbolic technology to produce hallucination-resistant artificial intelligence for high-trust applications.

The Role

We're looking for a visionary Staff Applied Scientist to play a key leadership role in our Applied Science team and across the company. This is a high-impact individual contributor position with mentoring and coaching responsibilities - ideal for someone who combines deep technical expertise with a passion for helping others grow.

You'll help drive the end-to-end lifecycle of projects: from identifying opportunities in the latest research, through proof-of-concept, to production deployment. Your work will sit at the cutting edge of machine learning and reasoning systems, with a particular focus on neurosymbolic AI, complex planning, and fully explainable architectures.

This role blends technical leadership with hands-on research. You'll set direction, influence others, and lead by example, all while mentoring colleagues and helping define best practices for the field.

What You'll Do

As a Staff Applied Scientist, you'll set the standard for high-impact applied research:

• Convert cutting-edge research in neurosymbolic AI into production-grade language generation systems.

• Design and experiment with hybrid neurosymbolic architectures that challenge current thinking in reasoning and planning.

• Lead applied research projects end-to-end: from ideation and literature review to prototyping and deployment.

• Write high-quality, robust code that integrates neural and symbolic components.

• Collaborate with scientists and engineers, articulating complex ideas clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.

• Analyse and inspect large-scale datasets to support neural training and symbolic extraction.

• Mentor and coach colleagues, offering guidance on both technical and professional development.

What We're Looking For

We're seeking an experienced applied scientist who combines depth in ML with leadership as an individual contributor:

• Deep learning expertise with significant industry experience, including 2+ years applying it to language generation.

• Experience with LLMs, neurosymbolic integration, and knowledge representation.

• Demonstrable success leading as an individual contributor - setting technical direction, influencing peers, and delivering high-impact work without direct management responsibilities.

• Proven experience mentoring and coaching colleagues.

• Strong Python skills and experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch, HF Transformers, TensorFlow, or JAX.

• Track record of end-to-end applied research and deploying transformer models.

• Deep knowledge of machine learning fundamentals and cloud deployment.

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Desirable

• Use of Python libraries that encourage best practices (pytest, pylint, black).

• Experience with symbolic reasoning engines and integration with neural networks.

• Strong technical writing skills (publications, blogs).

• Start-up experience.

• Git/GitHub proficiency.

• Experience with cloud platforms for deploying hybrid AI systems.

What's in it for You

This role gives you the opportunity to shape both our science and our culture:

• Work alongside a world-class group of smart, collaborative people who thrive on challenge.

• Help shape a novel neurosymbolic AI framework that unlocks new frontiers in explainability and reasoning.

• Explore original ideas, tackle unsolved problems, and define best practices in an environment where creativity and rigour go hand in hand.

Working at UnlikelyAI

We offer a range of benefits designed to support our team's wellbeing and work-life balance:

• We have a hybrid working arrangement, flexibly balancing working from home and office-based working

• Our office is located in Bloomsbury, approximately a five minute walk to both Tottenham Court Road and Holborn stations

• We provide free team lunches every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

• We schedule a variety of optional social and extra-curricular activities

• We have an annual offsite, usually to an international location, where we can work and socialise in the sun

Equal Opportunities

We are committed to having a truly diverse team where everyone is encouraged to be their authentic selves. We do not discriminate based on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, political affiliation, disability, age, marital status, medical history, parental status or genetic information.