Spektrum is supporting Allied Command Transformation (ACT), NATO's leading agent for change, by providing personnel to support key client projects. The specific program, Capability Development & Management Support (CDMS), aims to enhance NATO's military relevance and effectiveness through continuous improvement of Alliance capabilities. This role focuses on developing and implementing a data science and AI capability within NATO, with a particular emphasis on scalable data engineering and software systems to support AI initiatives, including Large Language Models (LLMs).
Requirements
- Minimum 4 years of proven work experience as a Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer, Data Engineer, or Software Engineer, with a strong emphasis on distributed systems, cloud-based architectures, developing operational AI/ML solutions, and designing API-based infrastructures, microservices architectures, and containerized applications (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).
- Demonstrated experience working with GenAI, in particular LLMs, including preprocessing data, fine-tuning, and deployment in secure and scalable environments to include AI/ML frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or scikit-learn.
- Proven expertise in programming languages such as Python, Java, or Scala, with demonstrated experience in software engineering practices (e.g., version control, CI/CD pipelines, containerization).
- Experience building and optimizing data pipelines, ETL processes, and real-time streaming solutions using tools like Apache Airflow, Kafka, Spark, or equivalent.
- Knowledge of applied AI principles, particularly in implementing AI systems for operational decision support and analyzing unstructured data (e.g., text, imagery).
- Ability to architect and maintain scalable data lakes, data warehouses, or distributed storage systems (e.g., Delta Lake, Snowflake, Hadoop, or NoSQL solutions).
- Demonstrated understanding of data security, privacy, and sovereignty issues, particularly in military or international environments, ensuring compliance with NATO operational and ethical standards.
Responsibilities
- Contribute to the development and implementation of an enabling data science and AI capability at HQ SACT and across the NATO Enterprise, with a specific focus on scalable data engineering and software systems to support AI initiatives.
- Design, develop, and maintain robust data pipelines and architectures to manage the ingestion, transformation, and processing of structured and unstructured data for large Language Model (LLM)-based applications and other AI systems.
- Lead efforts to optimize data delivery and automate data engineering processes, proposing enhancements to infrastructure to improve scalability, efficiency, and reliability in support of LLM deployments.
- Build API-based infrastructure and frameworks that enable seamless integration of LLMs and ML models with operational systems, ensuring performance, security, and interoperability with NATO environments.
- Support the development, testing, and validation of microservices and containerized applications to operationalize AI/ML capabilities, including deployment of LLM use cases within NATO.
- Implement distributed data storage and processing systems (e.g., cloud-based or hybrid architectures) that align with NATO standards and enable scalable use of LLMs across the enterprise.
- Develop tools and systems to improve data accessibility, enabling data scientists and analysts to efficiently interact with and query data for training, inference, and analytics.
Other
- Professional experience in NATO environments or familiarity with NATO processes, organizational culture, and decision-making structures.
- Ability to translate operational problems into practical AI/ML solutions tailored for military and civilian teams.
- Proven ability to collaborate effectively within multidisciplinary teams, including coordinating with data scientists, software engineers, and system architects on cross-functional projects.
- Strong oral and written communication skills, with the ability to brief non-technical audiences and mentor staff in AI engineering, data science, and software development concepts.
- A Bachelor’s degree or higher at a nationally recognized/certified university in Data Science, Data Analytics, AI engineering, or a related discipline such as Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, Software Engineering OR 4 years minimum professional experience in the area of Data Science, including providing analysis and advice in the field of data science, within the last 5 years.
- Advanced Proficiency in English
- Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance
