Who we are

Helsing is a software company that keeps our democracies from harm. We’re a diverse team of world class, ambitious, and impassioned engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers. We are looking for others to join our European teams to apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems in defence.

We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology, and AI particular, in defence, its benefits, and its ethical implications

The grand scheme

At Helsing we deliver AI-based capabilities and the enabling infrastructure that allow semi-autonomous platforms to localise, navigate, and perceive the world in real time. You will have the unique opportunity to shape the future of AI in one of the most challenging sectors, where performance needs to be paired up with high generalisation capabilities and strong robustness against adversarial attacks.

The day-to-day

You will experiment with and invent novel AI algorithms for defence applications. These algorithms will allow perception at the edge and assist human decision-making. You will be part of challenging projects that span several teams and you will focus on integrating cutting edge ML algorithms in our production systems in collaboration with Software and Deployed engineers.

You’ll do great if you…

Note: The following bullet points describe only one variant of our dream candidate. None of us matched all of these at once when we first joined Helsing. We very much encourage you to apply even if you believe you meet only part of our wish list.

Hold an MSc in robotics, computer science, engineering or related field with experience in conceptualising, implementing and thoroughly evaluating advanced AI-based systems
Have excellent communication skills and the ability to report and present research findings clearly and efficiently both internally and externally
Are passionate about keeping up to date with current research and enjoy reimplementing / extending papers on state of the art Deep Learning-based approaches
Possess solid software engineering skills, writing clean and well-structured code in Python and/or languages like Rust, Java, or modern C++, and experience deploying AI software to production including testing, QA, and monitoring

You’ll be even better prepared if you have …

PhD in robotics, computer science, engineering or related field and have authored publications in top-tier conferences, e.g., CVPR, NeurIPS, ICLR, ICCV, ICRA, IROS, etc
Designed, developed, evaluated state of the art AI methods on edge devices with limited compute resources and led their end-to-end product delivery
Experience with simulators, emulators, or synthetic data generators

Why Helsing

The work is important. We aim to give democracies the tools they need to thrive and protect themselves. At Helsing, you’ll be working on problems that directly impact the defence of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns, and few things are as important as that.

The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical concerns are vital. Combined with the high-impact, real-world, cross-cutting nature of the work, you get access to unique Engineering and AI challenges that make meaningful impact in the world.

The work is interesting. Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. We have to constantly innovate to stay ahead and to make possible the seemingly-impossible intersection of requirements placed upon the systems we build and deploy.

The company is ambitious. In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities, which makes for a dynamic work environment with lots of room for exploration and variation, and the possibility of being a critical part of truly groundbreaking projects. And doing so has yielded results: we already operate in four countries, and have landed multiple significant government contracts despite being a relatively young company.

The company invests in its people. Every start-up claims that they have excellent engineers and want to hire top talent. We’re no different. What sets Helsing apart is that for us hiring and developing our people is a matter of necessity. In our domain, the level of engineering excellence throughout the company has severe real-world ramifications, and our customers and partners depend on our engineering teams' continuous improvement to stay ahead.

People are trusted. We firmly believe that no one person has all the answers, especially in our domain, and that ensuring all voices can be heard is how we minimise the risk of poor judgement. We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practice responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about.

What we offer

Flexible working focused around outcomes, not time-tracking
Competitive compensation and stock options
Relocation support
Social, education, and gym subsidies and allowances
Regular company events and all-hands to bring together employees as one team across Europe
A hands-on onboarding program (affectionately labeled “Infraduction”), in which you will be building tooling and applications used across the company. This is your opportunity to learn our tech stack, explore the company, and learn how we get things done - all whilst working with other engineering teams from day one

Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity. Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.

Helsing's Candidate Privacy and Confidentiality Regime can be found here.

AI Research Engineer