Senior ML & AI Engineer

About us

Ascending AI is a stealth-mode AI startup supporting safe and efficient AI. Our mission is to facilitate technology that respects human autonomy, preserves meaningful choices and protects long-term goals. We create systems that enhance rather than replace human decision-making. The company is funded with EUR 5m in cash from the founders who have had multiple successful exits in cloud computing and cybersecurity.

The role

We’re currently looking for experienced senior Machine Learning & Agentic AI Engineers. You will play a critical role in designing, developing, and optimising our innovative products. We will only consider top-tier candidates with an entrepreneurial mindset and those who thrive in demanding environments. You will be based in our office in Amsterdam, we offer a hybrid model. Remote possible for exceptional talent.

For all our candidates, we expect the following requirements:

• A minimum of 5+ years of software engineering experience

• Ability to ship complex products independently or in small teams

• Strong programming skills in Python; bonus for Rust, Go, or TypeScript

• Experience with distributed systems and cloud-native tooling such as Docker, Kubernetes, Vercel, AWS

• Comfortable with a fast-paced, iterative product development

• High autonomy, low ego, strong collaboration mindset, roll-up-your-sleeves

• Able to mentor junior engineers and contribute to architecture decisions

• Passion for cutting-edge technology

• Fluent English language skills are required

Candidates may align with one or both of the specialisations below:

Specialisation 1 – Evaluations and ML

• Experience designing and implementing generative AI evaluations

• Hands-on experience with benchmarking tools like HELM, MMLU, Arena

• Experience with fine-tuning, synthetic data production, prompt engineering, and model comparisons

• Understands evaluation of alignment, robustness, and risk in LLMs

Specialisation 2 – Agentic Deployment

• Building agentic workflows using LangChain, AutoGen, CrewAI, or custom

• Experience deploying LLM-powered tools (assistants, copilots, agents)

• Full-stack engineering skills for production deployment

• Familiar with edge deployments and local inference

• UX-minded: builds tools humans can actually use
  

These are remote or hybrid roles. We work primarily in the Central European time zone and expect candidates to be within +/- 3 hours of CET. At this stage, close alignment matters - so occasional early mornings or late evenings may be needed to sync with the team.