Forlais Group
Lead AI Engineer / Head of Applied AI
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This role is for EvaEsi
EvaEsi is a UK AI platform built on Forlais' Research, approaching launch later this year. Our models are original floatless, compression-native designs and we are releasing three of them: Instant, Reasoning, and Elements, the flagship of the line. Elements will be equivalent in scale to a 140B model. The platform that will host these models has a multitude of inbuilt programs and we are also launching a desktop and mobile app, a developer API, and a collaborative studio, all designed to showcase a more efficient, more accurate model line.
This role will take on the responsibility of turning the models' final stages of development into launched, evaluated, supportable product behavior for every user of the platform. That covers the full path a model takes to production: evaluation and release criteria, the inference contracts between models and product surfaces, tool and harness behavior in production, and the capability standards that govern what the product claims and what it declines.
You will build and lead the team of engineers who work beside you, acting as the senior technical voice on model capability across the company. We are not calling this a rare opportunity; we are saying it is the chance to be part of launching a new category of AI.
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We are looking for someone who meets the following criteria:
- You must have a significant applied AI or machine learning engineering background with substantial production responsibility.
- You are someone who is results oriented and comfortable taking responsibility for outcomes well beyond a narrow brief.
- Bring an open mind and genuine readiness for a learning curve: the architecture is original, and the role demands a different kind of thinking rather than the standard playbook.
- Have the ability to be the senior technical voice on what a model can and cannot do, while staying open to exploring possibilities.
- Someone who is willing to adapt and try new ideas.
You are more likely to go to the next stage of the process if you have experience in:
- Evaluation systems, benchmarks, and release gating for production models.
- Model serving infrastructure, inference optimization, or high-performance distributed systems.
- Tool use, agent harnesses, or long-running AI workflows in production.
- Coding and building with Rust and Leptos.
- Observability and performance analysis of production AI workloads.
Compensation
We are hiring elite engineers. Compensation is discussed individually and set in line with industry leaders, and as you grow into the role, the compensation grows with you.
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Logistics
- Minimum education: a bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.
- Minimum years of experience: correlated with the seniority of the role rather than a fixed number.
- Location: United Kingdom. Working pattern will be discussed, and relocation support can be discussed for the right candidate.
We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. Strong candidates rarely meet every line of a role description, and we would rather see your application than not. EvaEsi wants a team with a genuine range of perspectives on how intelligent systems should behave.
When will you ever get this opportunity again. The models are our own, built on a completely original architecture, and you join before final training takes place: your input shapes the models before the world meets them. That changes the work: less integration of the familiar, more original engineering, with evidence standards to match. The role carries both the authority and the accountability for how the platform’s models behave in public.
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