Principal Artificial Intelligence Engineer

Job Description

The CSIR has a vacancy for a Principal Artificial Intelligence Engineer in the Emerging Digital Technologies for Fourth Industrial Revolution (EDT4IR) Research Centre. The role involves designing, developing, and implementing AI systems architecture and solutions, providing technical leadership, and mentoring junior staff. The position is based in Pretoria and reports to the Research Group Leader.

Requirements

• Honours degree in computer science/engineering, electrical/electronic engineering, information technology, or related fields
• Master’s degree (advantageous)
• Seven years’ experience in artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) and software development in AI technologies
• Experience in applied machine learning with regression, classification, and other models for supervised learning
• Experience in computer vision tasks
• Experience in natural language processing and understanding
• Experience building multimodal models
• Experience with unstructured data
• Experience in big-data unsupervised learning
• Experience in data platform engineering
• Demonstrated experience in bringing theoretical ML approaches from academia to large-scale production systems
• Experience with cloud-based platforms (AWS, IBM Cloud, Azure)
• Proficiency in building AI models with deep learning frameworks (TensorFlow, Keras, or Theano)
• Ability to select hardware to run ML models with required latency
• Business development and financial acumen
• Ability to construct scopes and proposals for potential clients
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Exposure to project management
• Experience as a technical lead for complex projects with multiple stakeholders
• Understanding of transforming/implementing software/algorithms for real-life systems (advantageous)
• Conflict management skills (advantageous)
• Knowledge of programming in modern object-oriented languages with open-source development tools
• Object-oriented software engineering skills
• Strong quantitative skills (mathematics/statistics/computer science)
• Demonstrated ability to supervise, mentor, and develop junior staff
• Skills in analytical thinking, flexibility, adaptability, investigative orientation, planning, organizing, problem-solving, verbal and written communication, teamwork, self-management, systems-level thinking, and multi-disciplinary knowledge

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership in the provision of technical solutions to client programmes
• Propose and contribute to the strategic investment plan
• Implement Parliamentary Grant, Contract Research and Development, and other grant-funded projects
• Research, develop, and test innovative AI solutions
• Remain well-versed in new approaches, tools, methods, or technologies in the AI space
• Advance theoretical AI approaches to deployable solutions in large-scale production systems
• Develop technology demonstrators to increase new localized technologies
• Supervise and mentor junior staff in AI expertise
• Generate and lead science, engineering, and technology (SET) activity outputs (e.g., reports, guidelines, system requirements, peer-reviewed publications, technology and software packages)
• Understand and interpret client requirements through user requirement analysis and well-articulated proposals
• Participate in external task teams or committees in relevant domains
• Provide technical support on business development and participate in client interactions
• Manage projects through planning processes and policies to ensure IP protection and technology transfer