AI Engineer
Content + Source + Freshness • 14 Feb 2026 • 95% confidence
Offer value
High value score due to the mission-driven focus on defense technology, significant technical challenges, and contributions to democratic protection.
- Involvement in advanced defense AI technologies.
- Substantial growth opportunities in a critical sector.
- Strong ethical focus on the responsible use of technology.
Pros
- Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI projects in the defense sector.
- Participation in impactful projects with high visibility.
- Supportive culture encouraging ethical technology discussions.
Cons
- Requirements for high qualifications may limit applicant pool.
- Emphasis on government contracts may lead to fluctuating job stability.
- Relocation or extensive travel might be expected.
Who it's for
Mid to Senior Level • Hybrid/onsite required
Good fit
- Experienced AI engineers with a defense background.
- Individuals passionate about ethical technology development.
- Collaborative professionals eager to engage in meaningful work.
Not recommended for
- Fresh graduates without relevant experience.
- Applicants who prefer lower pressure, traditional tech roles.
- Those not inclined towards discussing the societal impacts of technology.
Motivation fit
Key skills
About the job
Who we are
Helsing is a defense AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership, so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards.
As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously.
We are an ambitious and committed team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing program managers. We are looking for mission-driven people to join our European teams – and apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology in defense, its benefits, and its ethical implications.
The role
The day-to-day
You will develop ML/AI that leverage and extend the latest state-of-the-art methods and architectures, as well as design experiments and conduct benchmarks to evaluate and improve their performance in real-world scenarios. You will be a part of impactful projects and will collaborate with people across several teams and backgrounds to integrate cutting edge ML/AI in our production systems.
You should apply if you
- Hold an MSc in artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer science or a related field with experience in conceptualizing, implementing, and thoroughly evaluating advanced AI-based systems.
- Have experience with the complete machine learning pipeline, from collecting and annotating data, to evaluating model architectures, and iteratively training and tuning models to meet performance requirements.
- Have excellent communication skills and the ability to report and present research findings clearly and efficiently both internally and externally.
- Possess solid software engineering skills, writing clean and well-structured code in Python and/or languages like Rust, Java, or modern C++, and experience deploying AI software to production including testing, QA, and monitoring.
- Have developed or implemented AI applications in defense and broadly understand defense specific use cases.
Note: We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications; ability and impact cannot be summarized in a few bullet points.
Nice to Have
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Designed, developed, evaluated state of the art AI methods on edge devices with limited compute resources and led their end-to-end product delivery
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Experience with simulators, emulators, or synthetic data generators
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A US security clearance at the Secret or above level
Join Helsing and work with world-leading experts in their fields
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Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns
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The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world
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Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defense industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward
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In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts
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We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practice responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about
What we offer
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A focus on outcomes, not time-tracking
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A generous compensation and benefits package (in addition to base salary) that includes, but may not be limited to, insurance coverage (medical and travel), flexible paid time off, paid holidays, and remote and/or hybrid work available depending on position. All compensation and benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of the underlying plans or programs, as applicable and as may be amended, terminated or superseded from time to time.
#LI-DNI
Helsing is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We will consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, genetics, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
