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The role
Most medical AI remains confined to retrospective diagnostic imaging. This neurosurgeon-founded surgical intelligence company builds foundation models trained on continuous intraoperative video, kinematics, and imaging streamed directly from operating rooms. Backed by leading deep-tech investors, their preoperative planning software is already in routine clinical use across hospitals in the UK and US, while their intraoperative platform recently achieved first-in-human deployment running real-time intelligence on next-generation edge hardware.
Reporting directly to the CEO as Head of AI Research, you will define and execute the 12 to 24 month research roadmap that dictates what their surgical foundation models learn and why. You will scale the research organization from an initial lead engineer into a high-calibre team of research scientists and ML engineers while steering academic partnerships, grants, and patents. This is not an open-ended academic lab chasing marginal metric gains on curated static datasets; you will bridge frontier science with rigorous engineering, establishing hard handover criteria for real-time edge latency, non-rigid deformation, and pre-specified cadaveric and clinical trials.
The work
- Direct the core research roadmap across three foundational streams: real-time stereo surface reconstruction from surgical video, foundation-model adaptation for intraoperative kinematics and imaging, and deformable registration with quantified error bounds.
- Scale and lead the AI research group, hiring research scientists, machine learning engineers, and doctoral fellows while establishing internal research standards and publication cadences.
- Establish clear handover criteria—including accuracy, millisecond latency budgets, robustness, and technical documentation to transition novel architectures reliably into production engineering.
- Collaborate directly with Clinical Affairs and Regulatory to design pre-specified validation protocols across bench, phantom, cadaveric, and live clinical environments.
- Direct academic partnerships, serve as named principal investigator on competitive public research grants, and lead the company's patent and top-tier publication strategy.
What You Bring
- PhD in computer vision, medical image computing, robotics, or a related field, with 5+ years of post-doctoral research leadership.
- Sustained record of first- or senior-author publications at top-tier venues (such as MICCAI, IPCAI, CVPR, or IEEE TMI) in 3D reconstruction, SLAM, deformable registration, or foundation-model adaptation for video.
- Demonstrated track record leading an applied team of five or more researchers and engineers, with at least one novel method shipped to production or evaluated in a clinical trial.
- Proven track record securing competitive public grant funding and directing academic partnerships as a named investigator.
- Deep expertise in the failure modes of surgical and endoscopic video, with hands-on experience designing pre-specified clinical endpoints under strict real-time edge inference latency budgets.
Why apply through Dex
Executive research seats at the intersection of foundation models and live surgical robotics are exceptionally rare, and differentiating genuine clinical deployments from surface-level demos is difficult from a job spec alone. Applying through Dex skips the recruiter screen and puts your portfolio directly in front of the founding team. Create your profile once to get an unvarnished briefing on their dataset scale, hardware infrastructure, and clinical roadmap before your first conversation.
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Head of AI Research employer: Dex
At Dex, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work culture that fosters innovation and collaboration. Our London-based team enjoys a hybrid working model, competitive benefits, and ample opportunities for professional growth, all while contributing to cutting-edge technology in the healthcare sector. Join us to make a meaningful impact in real-time systems and edge deployment, surrounded by a supportive team dedicated to excellence.
