Research Specialist - AI Systems

Hybrid 3 days a week together out of our Bristol, Ipswich, or London offices (flexible 2 days remote wherever).

About the role

BT is investing in the next generation of sovereign AI, combining its network, infrastructure and AI capabilities to enable organisations to deploy advanced AI services securely within the UK. Read the BT announcement on sovereign AI and the £18bn opportunity for the UK.

Within BT Research, the Intelligent Service Operations team researches and develops the technologies needed to make AI scalable, efficient, and deployable across distributed sovereign infrastructure.

This role focuses on the design, implementation and evaluation of scalable and distributed AI systems. We are looking for someone who understands how the AI stack fits together, from models and inference through serving infrastructure.

You will research and develop state-of-the-art techniques, build experimental systems, evaluate their performance, and work with leading technology companies and research organisations to help shape the next generation of AI infrastructure.

Our work has been externally recognised and demonstrated at major industry and research events, giving you the opportunity to contribute to research that moves beyond the lab and towards real-world adoption and deployment.

You will be part of one of the world's leading telecoms research teams working on cutting edge technology and making a real world impact.

This role can be based in Bristol or Ipswich and our hybrid working model means you are expected to be in the office 3 days per week.

What you’ll be doing

• Research and develop techniques for scalable and distributed AI systems
• Design, build and evaluate prototypes and experimental AI infrastructure
• Work across models, inference, Kubernetes, GPUs, networks and distributed systems
• Benchmark and analyse system performance, including latency, throughput, scalability and resource utilisation
• Investigate and evaluate emerging AI and infrastructure technologies
• Collaborate with researchers, engineers and industry partners to turn research ideas into working systems
• Communicate your work through technical reports, demonstrations, publications and industry events

Essential Skills / Experience

• Practical experience with machine learning or LLM systems
• Strong Python development skills and confidence working in Linux environments
• Working knowledge of Kubernetes, containers and cloud-native infrastructure
• Understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including scalability, latency and throughput
• Experience designing experiments, benchmarking systems and analysing performance

Desirable Skills / Experience

• Master's degree, PhD, or equivalent industry experience in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field
• Experience with LLM serving frameworks such as vLLM, TGI, Triton or Ray Serve
• Knowledge of GPU scheduling, partitioning or resource-sharing technologies
• Experience with distributed AI inference, model parallelism or large-scale AI infrastructure
• Familiarity with networking concepts relevant to distributed AI systems
• Knowledge of agentic AI systems and multi-agent architectures
• Publications, conference presentations or open-source contributions

Our Package

Tailored benefits make a real difference. That’s why we offer a comprehensive range to support your growth, wellbeing, and everyday life. You can design the package to suit you and your lifestyle.

Your core benefits include:

• 10% on target annual bonus
• Access to an online private GP 24/7 for you and your immediate family
• Market-leading paid carers leave with up to 2 weeks off
• Equalised maternity, paternity, and adoption leave – 18 weeks’ full pay and 8 weeks’ half pay
• Discounted EE and BT products, including mobile and broadband
• Market leading Pension scheme – 5% from you and 10% from us
• Holiday purchase scheme

You can select additional benefits, including healthcare, dental, gym memberships and more when you’re ready.

BT Group is the UK’s leading communications group and the holding company behind some of the country’s most recognised brands – including BT, EE, Openreach and Plusnet. Our purpose is as simple as it is ambitious: we connect for good. Our customers include consumers, small, medium and large businesses, public sector organisations and other communications providers.

BT Group’s role is about setting direction, unlocking value and creating the conditions for our brands and businesses to thrive.

Having come through the most capital-intensive phase of our fibre investment, our focus now is on what comes next – simplifying how we operate, using technology and AI to work smarter, and organising ourselves to serve customers better and grow sustainably. Group teams shape strategy, policy, brand, capital allocation and transformation, helping the whole organisation perform at its best.

We have a singular culture that unites all our people: we are customer-first challengers, who are committed, clear and connected. These behaviours unite us as one team to deliver for our colleagues, our customers, our stakeholders and the country. Joining BT Group means working at the heart of a business that matters to the UK, with the opportunity to shape decisions, influence outcomes and help set the future course of one of the country’s most important companies.