Orcrist is hiring a Director of Research to build the research function behind a sovereign European intelligence platform. This is a player-coach role where you will define the research agenda, build a high-calibre team, shape public research bids and industry consortia, and turn novel methods into validated assets for product adoption. You will lead a unique mix of original research, real-world adoption, and public-interest impact.

What You'll Do

Define and own the company research strategy aligned with product priorities and multi-team technical leverage.
Build and lead a world-class research team of AI researchers, data scientists, and research engineers.
Lead first-principles research in domains such as ASR, translation, information extraction, multimodal reasoning, visual pattern recognition, graph/temporal reasoning, and statistical analysis.
Build the external R&D pipeline: identify opportunities, shape bids, build consortia, author work packages, and act as scientific/technical lead in awarded projects.
Establish research operating discipline: reproducibility standards, benchmark suites, experiment tracking, model/data documentation, and portfolio reviews.
Drive transfer into delivery teams by producing adoption-ready research packages, not just prototypes or papers.
Represent Orcrist externally across customers, partners, universities, RTOs, industry associations, and public funding bodies.
Shape IP and dissemination strategy for research outputs together with leadership and legal stakeholders.
Partner closely with Innovation, Insights, Foundation, Platform, and customer-facing teams.
Coach senior researchers and raise the bar for technical writing, scientific judgment, and cross-functional influence.

What We're Looking For

8+ years in applied AI/ML research, data science, or equivalent deep-technical R&D roles.
3+ years leading research programmes, senior researchers, or cross-functional R&D initiatives.
Deep expertise in machine learning / AI research with strong mathematical and statistical foundations.
Expert Python; strong command of PyTorch and CUDA-backed model development.
Experience with distributed training / research infrastructure (e.g. Ray, Horovod, multi-GPU workflows).
Strong grounding in evaluation design, error analysis, benchmark construction, and reproducible experimentation.
Comfort moving between research and applied systems concerns, including inference constraints and deployment trade-offs.
Experience across one or more of: NLP, speech/audio, translation, CV, multimodal systems, knowledge graphs, temporal reasoning, or applied statistics on structured data.
Track record of original research that produced practical impact: shipped capabilities, patents, influential prototypes, or externally recognised outputs.
Proven experience winning or materially shaping collaborative R&D proposals, grants, tenders, or consortia.
Strong technical writing: research memos, proposals, work packages, and external-facing technical narratives.
Player-coach mentality: high standards, low ego, hands-on when needed.
Eligible to work in Germany.
German language (C1+) and comfort working in German/EU public-sector environments.

Nice to Have

Publications, patents, open-source contributions, or recognised external technical profile.
Experience with EU/public R&D programmes such as EDF, Horizon Europe, DIANA, EUDIS, or similar ecosystems.
Experience in defence, law enforcement, geospatial, or intelligence-adjacent domains.
Familiarity with research-to-production ML systems (e.g. Triton, KServe, MLflow).
Existing network across universities, RTOs, primes, SMEs, or European innovation bodies.