Principal Machine Learning Engineer
Confidential — AI Foundations
Series A · 35 engineers
Founding ML hire at a stealth Series A working on retrieval architectures for sovereign LLMs.
Reference
VT-ML-1109
Location
London · Hybrid
Engagement
Permanent
Posted
7 May 2026 · 2w ago
Compensation
£220k – £300k
Base only · Bonus and equity additional
Apply nowThe Brief
A stealth Series A — backed by some of the most respected names in European venture — is hiring its founding Principal Machine Learning Engineer. The team is small (35), highly senior, and shipping foundation models for sovereign and regulated environments. This is an IC role with significant scope to shape both research direction and the engineering culture.
Responsibilities
- 01
Lead research on retrieval-augmented architectures
- 02
Set the engineering bar for the ML platform
- 03
Publish — the company supports two major papers per year per principal
The Successful Candidate
- 01
Strong publication record at top-tier ML venues
- 02
Production experience training models at >10B parameters
- 03
Prior IC role at a frontier AI lab or comparable
Compensation & Benefits
Top-of-market compensation
Founder-tier equity
Compute budget
Conference and publication support
Tags
Apply
Apply for this mandate.
Reference VT-ML-1109 · Principal Machine Learning Engineer
Related mandates
More in Technology
Chief Technology Officer
Confidential — Series C Fintech
Backed by Index, Accel and Lakestar. Replatforming a profitable £40M ARR business onto modern infrastructure ahead of an EU expansion.
£220k – £280k
Director of Product, Data Platform
Public Tech (FTSE 250)
Own product strategy and roadmap for the data platform powering 80% of group revenue.
£165k – £200k
VP Engineering, Platform
Series C Fintech
Build and lead the platform engineering function — direct report to the incoming CTO.
£175k – £215k