ML/AI Research Engineer in Dundee

Abertay is a modern university with a global outlook, rooted in its local and national communities. We have made our mark with high quality, well-directed teaching and research, and a stimulating and enriching experience for our students.

CoSTAR National Lab for R&D in Creative Technology is the largest ever investment in creative industries R&D in UK history: a £51.1m programme led by Royal Holloway, University of London, to give the UK’s screen and performance industries the R&D infrastructure to compete globally.

This is a unique opportunity to shape how the creative industries adopt and innovate with AI, from world models and generative AI to large language models and real-time multimodal tools. You will work with leading creative companies, including Pinewood, BT, Disguise and innovative UK SMEs, helping them apply emerging AI technologies across the screen and performance sectors.

We are seeking someone with a research-grade understanding of modern AI models and a passion for practical application. You will work hands-on with world models, LLMs, VLMs and speech, image and 3D generation systems, adapting, fine-tuning and extending them where off-the-shelf solutions are insufficient.

The role includes building on existing toolkits, evaluating and integrating emerging models, and undertaking original R&D where industry needs extend beyond current capabilities. The work spans film, virtual production, games and 3D, immersive experiences and live entertainment.

Based at Pinewood as part of the Prototyping Team, you will collaborate closely with Abertay colleagues, developers, researchers and leadership teams in a creative, inclusive and dynamic environment.

What you will be doing:

• Working with Abertay and CoSTAR staff and partners to evaluate, adapt and fine-tune emerging AI models, including world models, open-weight LLMs and multimodal generative AI for text, image, video and 2D/3D content.
• Developing software, tools and prototypes for film and virtual production, games and 3D, augmented, virtual and extended reality, and immersive and live entertainment.
• Extending the Lab's existing toolkits, including a unified front end for multiple world models and a suite of speech, image and 3D tools.
• Deploying and hosting models and tools on the Lab's infrastructure for partner use in R&D, testing and evaluation.
• Working within a multidisciplinary innovation team to deliver high-quality, performant code aligned with project goals and delivery cycles.
• Collaborating with external companies to understand workflows, trial tools and feed findings back into development and research.
• Contributing to the Lab's wider research agenda through technical reports, demonstrations and other R&D activities across the CoSTAR National Lab partnership.

You should apply if you:

• Have a research background in AI/ML (e.g. a PhD, a research MSc or equivalent industry R&D) with real depth in at least one of transformers, diffusion models, LLMs, VLMs, LAMs or world models.
• Are motivated by seeing your research applied: published, and in use by real productions.
• Have proven experience delivering research or production-quality AI/ML software, and have taken models beyond experiments, e.g. building tools, APIs or services that others have used.
• Have a strong command of AI and software engineering fundamentals: architecture; training, fine-tuning and adaptation (e.g. LoRA); design patterns; testing; and best practice.
• Are fluent in tools for AI, real-time and graphics pipelines, such as Python, PyTorch, GPU compute, model serving and networking. C++, real-time 3D or game engine experience is welcome but not essential.
• Enjoy working in a fast-moving, agile environment, both independently and in multidisciplinary teams with creatives, researchers and industry partners.
• Bring a strong passion for emerging creative technologies and a disciplined, professional approach to collaborative R&D.