Lead AI Researcher

TechWolf is at the forefront of transforming the HR tech industry through the power of Artificial Intelligence. Our AI team is pivotal in ensuring that our technology is cutting-edge, ethically sound, and impactful. We aim to lead the market in data-driven skill and work intelligence, helping companies understand and leverage their workforce capabilities. TechWolf actively contributes to the wider AI community through impactful open-source projects and high-quality academic publications. As part of our AI mission, the research team focuses on four key pillars:

• Research with product impact: Research tracks are chosen and executed to feed into customer workflows, with a tight experiment-to-production loop.

• AI-native research practice: We are deliberately building a research function designed for the agentic era: autonomous experiment pipelines, LLM-assisted workflows, and tooling that lets a lean team move at the pace of a much larger lab.

• Responsible AI: We lead by example on transparency, fairness, and regulatory compliance. Our applied research approach focuses on specialized, trustworthy AI.

• Thought leadership and academic presence: We publish at top-tier venues, organize and contribute to workshops, and maintain deep ties to the broader research community, most notably through our partnership with Ghent University.

We are looking for a Lead AI Researcher to own and grow our research function, shape the agenda, and build the team that will define the next generation of skills intelligence. Join us in pushing AI boundaries, shaping the future of work, and making a profound impact.

What you’ll do

As Lead AI Researcher at TechWolf, you are the single owner of our research function. You define the research agenda, lead the team that executes it, and represent TechWolf in the academic and applied AI community. Reporting to our Director of AI, Jens-Joris, you will manage a small research team and act as the credible industry-side counterpart to our academic partners. This is a role for someone who wants to build a research team, not just contribute to one.

• Grow your people: Manage, mentor, and develop TechWolf's AI research team. Set priorities, run one-on-ones, define growth goals for your direct reports, and actively coach them to reach their full potential. Act as the industry-side supervisor for our Baekeland PhD candidate and the credible counterpart to UGent.

• Own the research agenda: Define and drive research tracks that advance skill inference and broader HR-AI technology, balancing scientific ambition with product relevance. Make the judgment calls on what to research, when to publish, and how to sequence exploration against business priorities.

• Drive research through to publication: Lead research end-to-end, personally and through the team, landing work at top-tier venues (ACL, EMNLP, NeurIPS, ICML, AAAI, KDD, or equivalent). Maintain a coherent research narrative that establishes TechWolf as a serious AI research company.

• Represent TechWolf externally: Own our presence at academic conferences and workshops — including organizing workshops, serving on program committees, reviewing, and building relationships with university labs and peer research teams.

• Shape strategic direction: Partner with the Director of AI on TechWolf's technical direction, contributing to roadmaps, risk assessments, and the research investments that will differentiate us over the next two to three years.

• Champion AI-native research: Drive the adoption of AI-native research methods within the team — autonomous experiment pipelines, agentic coding tools, LLM-assisted workflows — to multiply the team's throughput. This is a genuine strategic priority for us.

• Collaborate cross-functionally: Work closely with Product and Engineering to identify research questions that matter for the business, translate findings into reliable solutions, and keep experiment-to-production lead times short.

Who you are

• You have a PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, NLP, or a closely related field, or equivalent industry research experience.

• You have 5+ years of practical experience in AI/ML research, with a proven track record of peer-reviewed publications at top-tier venues.

• You have experience leading research projects end-to-end, from problem framing through publication, and you're proficient in Python and the modern deep learning stack.

• You have initial experience mentoring, onboarding, or managing researchers, and you understand the importance of setting clear goals and giving honest feedback.

• You're a strong communicator who thrives in a collaborative environment, and you can translate research clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• You have a track record of bridging real-world AI applications and academic research. You understand that research has to land in a product to matter here.

• You're curious about AI-native research methods and have started experimenting with agentic tooling, autonomous experiment pipelines, or LLM-assisted research workflows.

• You're based in Belgium and excited to work together with the TechWolf team in our Ghent office at least three days per week.

• Nice to have: experience supervising PhD candidates or industrial PhD tracks.

• Nice to have: active presence in the academic community through workshop organization, PC membership, or reviewing.

What's in it for you?

📊 Fair & competitive salaries – we benchmark our salaries yearly and pay above the market median in every role and location.

📈 Equity - everyone is an owner at TechWolf and can share in our success!

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Hybrid working and flexible hours - make your work schedule work for you

🚗 Mobility your way - choose between a company car or a mobility budget

🌱 Health insurance & retirement savings

🏝️ Work from abroad 3 weeks each year

💻 Learning and development opportunities

🚶‍♀️ Walking culture - who doesn’t love brainstorming or connecting with colleagues while taking a walk around the office?

🎉 Fun teambuildings, social & sports activities

Sounds like your cup of tea? There’s more!

TechWolf is on a mission to make work better and fairer for millions of people by powering the shift from jobs to skills as a framework to model talent. Our enterprise software uses AI to provide the skill data needed to power that transformation.

We provide a unique opportunity to work with an all-star team and cutting-edge product, in a purpose-driven company that aims to empower people to flourish at work. TechWolf is growing fast and you’ll join a high-performing international team with a unicorn dream. Are you ready to build a rocket ship with us?

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