About usEncord is the universal data layer for AI that helps 300+ AI teams train and run models on the right data. Our platform indexes, curates, annotates, and evaluates data across the full AI lifecycle, from development through production. Trusted by Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath, Zipline, and more.We're an ambitious team of 100+ working at the frontier of AI and have raised $60M in Series C funding from Wellington Management, CRV, Next47 and Y Combinator. The roleWe're looking for a Research Engineer to join Encord's ML team. You'll work on robotics, computer vision and multimodal research in data curation, annotation, evaluation and quality control, with successful work going into the core product.We face a variety of interesting research problems across the full data life-cycle, including annotation, quality control, verification and curation. We are looking to strengthen our team to build upon and extend our market-leading platform. The kind of problems we solve are constantly evolving alongside the needs of our frontier customers, including many of the leading robotics and physical AI teams. Join us as we leverage our massive flow of proprietary data on our journey to develop generalised solutions applicable across diverse multi-modal tasks. What you'll doForm hypotheses, design experiments, and drive original research on open problems from leading robotics and AI customersResearch and prototype agentic workflows which can handle multimodal inputs and diverse customer ontologiesAdvance our work on data curation and model evaluationTackle egocentric video understanding, from captioning to deeper 3d understandingBuild working prototypes to test ideas end to end, then partner with our ML systems and Product Engineering teammates to bring them into the platformHelp shape our longer-term research direction and bring the most relevant ideas from the field back to the teamPublish research papers and present your work at conferences and workshops Who we're looking forA builder with a research mindset. You can take an open-ended problem, form a hypothesis and get to a working prototype without a detailed spec.A first-principles problem solver. You lean on strong fundamentals rather than surface-level familiarity with the latest trends.A big-picture thinker. You're excited by ambitious, longer-term problems and know how to break them into steps.A multiplier. You raise the level of the team around you by shaping research direction, mentoring others and turning findings into decisions. Experience requirementsA PhD in computer vision, machine learning or a related field, or equivalent applied research experienceA strong background in computer vision and multimodal ML, whether in traditional CV, modern VLMs and embedding models, or bothClear evidence of independent research, such as publications, a thesis, open-source work or applied research where you owned the original contributionSolid mathematical foundations in statistics, probability and linear algebraStrong Python and PyTorch skills, and experience running experiments end-to-endA genuine interest in data-centric AI: curation, evaluation and data qualityBonus: experience applying LLM-based agents to visual tasks, or working with video, 3D or other complex data types We’ll start reviewing applications from 1 November 2026. It may take a little while to hear back, but every application will get proper consideration. Why EncordCompetitive salary and meaningful equity in a high-growth startupStrong in-person culture — most of the team works from our London office 4+ days/week25 days annual leave + UK public holidaysAnnual learning & development budgetTravel for customer visits, events, and conferences across the UK and EuropeDaily company lunchesMonthly socials & bi-annual team offsitesFind Jobs in United Kingdom on Arbeitnow