Research Team Leader – Reasoning Multimodal LLMs

Location: Remote but first 12 months willing to relocate temporarily to Shenzhen, China

The 12+ months in Shenzhen assignment is fully covered by the client: flights, accommodation, etc.

After this time, the candidate can work remotely from any European country.

Our client is a global consumer electronics leader with 120,000 employees across 78 countries and ranks as the #2 TV brand worldwide. Their portfolio includes display technologies, mobile and wearable devices, smart appliances, and renewable energy solutions.

They are launching a major AI initiative to develop advanced Reasoning Multimodal Large Language Models (LLMs)—capable of processing and reasoning across text, images, and audio for real-world industrial applications.

They are now seeking a Research Team Leaders to shape the research agenda, lead a high-caliber team, and collaborate closely with business units, particularly in display and photovoltaic manufacturing where multimodal data is key.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the research strategy for reasoning-capable multimodal LLMs (text, vision, speech).
• Manage a team of researchers and applied scientists; provide mentorship and technical guidance.
• Oversee model pre-training, fine-tuning, synthetic data generation, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), Chain-of-Thought reasoning, and agentic workflow development.
• Bridge fundamental research and real-world product applications.
• Collaborate with international research groups, including strategic partners such as the Alibaba Qwen LLM team.
• Stay at the forefront of advances in deep learning, LLMs, and multimodal AI.

What We Offer

• Leadership role in a high-impact, greenfield AI research project.
• Attractive compensation based on experience and qualifications.
• Opportunity for accelerated professional development.
• Exposure to cutting-edge technology and collaboration with globally recognized AI teams.
• Potential for temporary assignments in Shenzhen, China, one of the world’s leading tech innovation hubs.

Candidate Profile

Must-have:

• At least 5 years of experience in AI/ML research, including leadership responsibilities.
• Strong expertise in deep learning and architectures such as Transformers, CLIP, or SAM.
• Hands-on experience with modern deep learning frameworks, preferably PyTorch.
• MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related technical field.
• Excellent command of English and a strong sense of ownership and collaboration.

Nice-to-have:

• Willingness to work on-site in Shenzhen for strategic collaboration phases.
• Track record of mentoring or growing research teams.
• Publications in top-tier conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, CVPR, ACL).
• Success in technical competitions in AI, mathematics, or algorithm design.