Head of AI

About the role

The Head of AI will define and own the AI strategy across product, internal tooling, and the entire technical organization. Reporting to the CTO, this role involves working closely with engineering leadership to push boundaries in sensing, autonomy, and robotics for defense applications. The position also serves as a visible technical leader, driving internal AI adoption and representing the company's technical ambition externally.

Responsibilities

• Define and own STARK's AI strategy across product and internal domains, setting a direction that Technical Leads can execute against
• Lead AI stack decisions, model selection, frameworks, MLOps infrastructure, evaluation, and tooling
• Act as connective tissue across teams to identify and resolve cross-team AI dependencies and shared infrastructure gaps
• Drive internal AI adoption, developer productivity tooling, and agent infrastructure across engineering and operations
• Provide technical oversight and challenge across all AI workstreams regarding methodology and performance
• Monitor the academic and commercial AI landscape to translate advances into strategic inputs
• Partner with programme and product leadership to ensure AI development maps to real mission requirements
• Contribute to senior technical hiring and define the AI engineering standard
• Represent the company externally at defence, robotics, and AI venues

Required skills

• Machine learning
• Computer vision
• Robotics
• AI technical strategy
• Perception
• Sensor fusion
• Autonomy
• Motion planning
• SLAM
• Multi-agent coordination
• Defence technology
• Aerospace
• English
• Security clearance

Nice to have

• European defence AI network
• Staff-level AI experience
• Principal-level AI experience
• Public technical profile
• German

Qualifications

• Degree in machine learning, computer vision, robotics, or a closely related field
• Demonstrably equivalent depth through industry research and an open publication or open-source record

About the Company

Stark is a premier defence technology company that develops next-generation autonomous defence platforms and advanced AI-driven software for NATO Allies and partners. The company fosters a fast-paced, collaborative environment focused on relentless innovation and high-stakes engineering.