Job Title: Research Fellow – AI Engineer

Post Status: Specific Purpose Contract – 13 months

Research Centre: Learnovate Centre, Trinity College Dublin

Location:  Unit 28, TTEC, Grand Canal Quay, Dublin 2, D02 N638, Ireland

Job Category and Level: Appointment will be made on the IUA Post -doctoral Researcher Salary Scale (Research Fellow Point 4 -€73,239)

Hours of Work  9am – 5pm, blended working

The purpose of this role is to design, lead and implement a defined programme of research and software engineering in support of the Abilta project, developing, evaluating and translating innovative AI-enabled educational technologies into practical applications. Working under the direction of the Principal Investigator, the Research Fellow – AI Engineer will exercise a high degree of independence in shaping and delivering the research programme, contributing to the project’s scientific direction, technical architecture, dissemination of findings and impact. The postholder will work collaboratively within a multidisciplinary team of researchers, technologists, user experience experts and industry partners, while conducting all research in accordance with the University’s Research Integrity Policy and other relevant policies. The training and development relevant to this position will be completed within the period of the contract.

Learnovate is a research centre hosted by Trinity College Dublin, funded by Enterprise Ireland and supported by the IDA with 15 years of successful multi-million euro industry-led research.  Learnovate  provides thought leadership to the world’s edtech, learning tech and learning & development community on the innovative use of education and learning technology for maximum organisation and learner success.

Context

The Abilta project will develop a next-generation behavioural insight platform integrating neuroscience, psychology and artificial intelligence to deliver transformative leadership and team development through improved decision-making. Co-developed by Professor Ian Robertson and Dr Fiona O’Doherty and based on decades of brain research and clinical practice, along with the Learnovate Centre at Trinity College Dublin, Abilta will develop a proprietary Cognitive Insight Engine to assess and decode behavioural signals, pinpoint emotional friction points and deliver precision-targeted micro-interventions backed up where necessary by tailored digital training. Abilta is designed for Leadership Development functions in large, regulated and unregulated organisations, where poor decision-making under pressure carries financial, operational and regulatory cost.

Funding Information

Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund

This is a list of the tasks, duties and responsibilities for the role.  It is not intended to be exclusive and may be adjusted dependent on the area of research.

• Conduct individual and/or collaborative research to the highest ethical standards in a variety of settings
• Engage in the dissemination of the results of the research in which you are engaged in to the relevant research stakeholders in the appropriate form
• Engage in the wider research and scholarly activities of your research group, centre or unit and contribute to its profile by participating in promotion activity
• Take responsibility for, manage and conduct administrative and management tasks associated with the research programme
• A commitment to ongoing research and publications
• Work closely with the Learnovate Technology Lead to develop and implement the Abilta technology
• Actively develop end-user applications and backend technologies that have a real impact on decision-making in the real world
• Help to manage and maintain cloud-based infrastructure to support the development, testing and deployment of Abilta

This section sets out the knowledge, skills and attributes the post-holder will need for successful performance in the role.

Qualifications

• PhD (four years of equivalent full-time research experience may be considered in lieu of PhD) and significant industrial experience

Knowledge & Experience (Essential & Desirable)

• AI Orchestration & Integration
  • Model selection: Selection, benchmarking and evaluation of AI models for specific business and technical use cases.
  • Model Implementation: Design, implementation and optimisation of AI solutions using LLMs and foundation models, including integrating major LLM APIs (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or Hugging Face) into production environments.
  • Model evaluation and adaptation: AI observability, performance measurement and continuous improvement. Experience with fine-tuning, model adaptation and optimisation techniques where appropriate.
  • LLM Frameworks: Experience with orchestration tools like LangChain, LlamaIndex, or Haystack to build complex AI workflows.
  • RAG Architecture: Design and implementation of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures, knowledge retrieval systems, agent-based workflows and integrations with enterprise data sources.
• AI-Specific Engineering Patterns:
  • Prompt Engineering: Ability to design, test, and iterate on system prompts to ensure reliable, high-quality model outputs.
• Data & Vector Management
  • Embeddings: Strong understanding of embedding models, semantic search, similarity matching, chunking strategies and retrieval optimisation techniques.
  • Vector Databases: Experience designing and implementing vector storage and search solutions using technologies such as Pinecone, ChromaDB, Weaviate, Qdrant or Azure AI Search.
• AI Operations: Experience deploying, monitoring and maintaining AI systems in production environments, including observability, logging and cost optimisation.
• Experience with responsible AI, AI governance, security, privacy and risk management practices.
  • Evaluation Frameworks: Experience designing automated and human-in-the-loop evaluation frameworks to assess accuracy, relevance, safety and performance of AI systems.

 Skills & Competencies

• Demonstrable experience working across frontend, backend and infrastructure management (dev/ops)
• Have familiarity with: Version control tools such as git through GitLab, GitHub, etc.
• Build automation / continuous integration tools such as GitHub Actions or Jenkins
• Containerisation concepts and technologies such as Docker
• Cloud computing environments such as AWS
• API development and testing tools such as Postman, Insomnia, Swagger, etc.
• Show an understanding of:
  • Service-oriented architecture
  • RESTful APIs
  • Unit and functional testing
• ‘Frontend-Adjacent Engineering’
  • Have experience integrating AI with:
    • web-based tools using JavaScript (REACT, Angular) and mobile apps
    • backend development and APIs using JavaScript (Express.js, Nest.js, Loopback) or similar backend technologies
    • relational and NoSQL databases using MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc.

• Experience of working in an agile environment and adapting to change (desirable)
• Demonstrate a desire to work in a startup-type environment with a broad scope of ownership and a high degree of autonomy.
• Communicate effectively with diverse groups: entrepreneurs, managers, potential users, scientists.
• Demonstrate a learning and growth-focused mindset and a strong desire to share your skills and learn from those around you
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Strong written and verbal English proficiency

• The ability to generate new ideas and build on existing to generate unique concepts and solutions with integrity
• The ability to contribute to broader organisational and management processes
• The ability to manage self, time, resources and people
• The capacity to work independently on research projects as well as part of a team
• If you require a visa to work in Ireland this must already be in place. This role is based in Dublin, Ireland.

In Trinity there are 6 Core Competencies that are applicable to all roles across a range of professional, administrative and support jobs, unlike specialist or technical skills which may be job specific. They provide a common language for describing performance and the abilities/attributes displayed by individuals. They focus on ‘how’ tasks are achieved, not ‘what’ is achieved.

Below is a summary definition of the 6 Core Competencies.

For queries on this role please contact tom.pollock@learnovatecentre.org