ML Scientist - Adversarial Robustness

ML Scientist - Adversarial Robustness

Full-Time 63000 - 77000 £ / year (est.) Home office (partial)
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At a Glance

  • Tasks: Dive into cutting-edge ML research and train advanced models across vision and language.
  • Company: Join a leading AI company pushing the boundaries of machine learning.
  • Benefits: Enjoy flexible work, competitive pay, and the chance to collaborate with top researchers.
  • Other info: Great opportunities for career growth and innovation in a dynamic environment.
  • Why this job: Make a real impact in the world of AI while working on exciting projects.
  • Qualifications: 3+ years in ML research and strong skills in PyTorch or TensorFlow required.

The predicted salary is between 63000 - 77000 £ per year.

We're looking for experienced machine learning researchers with hands‑on experience training and improving deep learning models end-to-end, across vision and language.

You’ll work on well‑scoped empirical open‑ended ML research problems.

Responsibilities

  • Train image classifiers and generative image models from scratch, and fine‑tune open‑weight language models.
  • Get the most out of limited data, compute, and model‑size budgets.
  • Make models robust — to adversarial inputs and to adversarial conversations.
  • Compress models to meet hard size and latency constraints without sacrificing accuracy.
  • Diagnose and resolve training issues.

Requirements

  • We are looking for candidates with strong expertise in one or more of the following areas:
  • Adversarial Robustness

Experience with

  • Adversarial training of image classifiers (e. g. PGD‑based training, TRADES).
  • Evaluating robust accuracy under standard threat models (e. g. L∞ attacks, Auto Attack) and avoiding gradient‑masking pitfalls.
  • Managing the robustness‑accuracy trade‑off and robust overfitting.
  • Efficient Computer Vision

Experience with

  • Training image classifiers end‑to‑end, especially for fine‑grained recognition (many visually similar classes, few examples per class).
  • Model compression: quantization, pruning, and knowledge distillation from large teachers into small students.
  • Deploying models under hard size or latency budgets (on‑device, edge, or embedded settings).
  • Generative Image Modeling

Experience with

  • Training image generative models from scratch: diffusion models, GANs, VAEs, or flow‑based models.
  • Iterating against sample‑quality metrics such as FID.
  • Training‑efficiency tricks that produce good generators quickly and at small parameter counts.
  • LLM Post‑Training & Behavioral Robustness

Hands‑on experience with one or more of

  • Supervised fine‑tuning and preference optimisation (DPO, RLHF, RLAIF) of open‑weight language models, including building your own datasets via synthetic generation, noisy or weak supervision, and rejection sampling.
  • Shaping conversational behaviour over multiple turns: resistance to persuasion and sycophancy, calibrated confidence, and knowing when to accept corrections.
  • Alignment‑style fine‑tuning that changes a specific behaviour while preserving general capability.
  • Multilingual Pre‑training

Experience with

  • Training multilingual or low‑resource‑language models from scratch.
  • Tokenizer design across scripts and typologically diverse languages.
  • Balancing highly unequal per‑language data (sampling temperatures, cross‑lingual transfer) in data‑constrained regimes.
  • Additional Areas of Interest

Experience in any of the following is a plus

  • Scaling laws and training‑efficiency research.
  • Curriculum learning and data ordering.
  • Model evaluation: benchmark construction, contamination control, statistically sound comparisons.
  • Uncertainty estimation and model calibration.
  • Data augmentation and synthetic data for robustness.
  • General Qualifications
  • 3+ years of machine learning research experience (Ph D research counts toward this requirement).
  • Strong experience with Py Torch, JAX, Tensor Flow, or similar ML frameworks.
  • Degree from a top‑100 university, experience at a FAANG or comparable AI company, or an equivalent research track record through publications or impactful open‑source contributions.
  • Why Join
  • Work on cutting‑edge machine learning research.
  • Collaborate with leading AI researchers on challenging, high‑impact projects.
  • Flexible, project‑based work with competitive compensation.
  • #J-18808-Ljbffr

ML Scientist - Adversarial Robustness employer: Obsidian

Obsidian is an exceptional employer located in the vibrant Greater London area, offering a dynamic work culture that fosters innovation and collaboration among experts in the field. Employees benefit from a fast-start program with opportunities for growth and extension, alongside a commitment to quality in AI model training that makes a meaningful impact in genomics. With a focus on professional development and a supportive environment, Obsidian is dedicated to empowering its team members to excel in their careers.

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Contact Details:

Obsidian Recruitment Team

We think you need these skills to ace ML Scientist - Adversarial Robustness

Deep Learning
Adversarial Training
Image Classification
Generative Image Models
Model Compression
Quantization
Pruning