Senior Research Engineer

Structured as s 2 year rolling contract

This role sits inside a research-driven engineering team building real Generative AI systems that are meant to leave the lab and prove their value in the world.

It is about building working GenAI agents, putting them in front of partners, stress testing them, improving them and demonstrating that they solve meaningful problems. The domains range from public safety and social services to finance. The common thread is impact.

In the first six months, you would join an applied project where the goal is to prototype a GenAI agent and convince an external partner that it creates tangible value. You would work closely with a senior researcher, iterating quickly, shipping regular merge requests, refining features, spotting technical risks early and improving the system week by week.

There is a strong emphasis on being able to explain what you built, both to technical peers and to non-technical stakeholders.

The environment is intentionally exploratory. New models, new agent frameworks, new tooling. If something promising appears, you are encouraged to test it. The team meets in person every Tuesday in Heidelberg, but beyond that there is flexibility. English is the working language.

You might be refining prompts and evaluation loops for LLM-based systems, experimenting with coding agents, shaping system architectures, or mapping out a lightweight roadmap for how a prototype could evolve into something commercial.

Who we're looking for:

• Working with LLMs or GenAI in practice since at least 2023, comfortable building in Python with proper version control.
• A Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, AI or a related field fits well.
• Industry experience matters more than labels.
• Experience with coding agents such as Cursor or Codex is particularly interesting, as is familiarity with modern GenAI libraries and lightweight MLOps tooling.
• Just as important is adaptability. The technology moves fast and so does the direction of applied projects.

The interview process is technical but practical. There is an initial technical conversation focused on engineering and GenAI fundamentals, followed by a motivational discussion, and then an in-person day that includes collaborative coding using AI coding agents. The coding session focuses more on how you think and structure a solution than on perfect syntax.

This is suited to someone who enjoys building at the edge of what is currently possible with Generative AI, but who also cares whether the result genuinely improves something for real users.

If this sounds interesting, please apply here and a member of the team will be in touch.