Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Federated AI Technologies

About the Role

Join the CAFEIN platform team at CERN as a Senior Machine Learning Engineer and help shape the next generation of federated AI technologies used in some of the world's most advanced scientific environments. This Senior Machine Learning Engineer role offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to R&D on state-of-the-art machine learning, designing, implementing, and evaluating advanced algorithms end to end.

What You'll Do

• Translate real-world challenges, medical data analysis, anomaly detection, and complex systems modeling into well-defined ML problems.
• Design, implement, and evaluate state-of-the-art ML models using Python and frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, scikit-learn, and Hugging Face.
• Contribute to the research and development of federated learning methods, agentic AI, and applied ML solutions for tabular, image, and signal data.
• Develop applied ML solutions for diverse domains including medical imaging, anomaly detection, and predictive maintenance.
• Perform exploratory data analysis, feature engineering, and visualization to support model development and identify new use cases.
• Document methods, write clear reports, publish findings, and communicate results within multidisciplinary R&D teams.
• Supervise team members and contribute to their professional growth.

Requirements

• Strong background in machine learning, statistics, and data science fundamentals.
• Excellent proficiency in Python for ML research and experimentation, with hands-on experience with major frameworks and libraries (PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, scikit-learn, Hugging Face).
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and evaluating state-of-the-art ML algorithms, including transformer-based and agentic architectures.
• Experience conducting ML experiments, benchmarking models, and interpreting results across diverse data modalities (tabular, medical imaging, and signal data).
• Practical exposure to federated learning concepts and privacy-preserving or distributed ML approaches is a plus.
• Strong scientific mindset with a track record of reading, understanding, and contributing to research literature.
• Good communication skills to document methods, present results, and collaborate within multidisciplinary R&D teams.

Nice to Have

• Knowledge of particle accelerator systems or healthcare applications.
• Familiarity with federated learning tools and distributed ML environments.
• Spoken and written English, with a commitment to learn French.

What We Offer

• A monthly stipend between 6372-7004 Swiss Francs per month (tax-free) depending on your degree.
• 30 days of paid leave per year plus 2 weeks annual closure.
• Coverage by CERN’s comprehensive health insurance scheme (for yourself, your spouse, and children).
• Membership of the CERN Pension Fund.
• Family, child, and infant monthly allowances depending on your individual circumstances.
• A relocation package (installation grant and travel expenses) depending on your individual circumstances.
• Possibility to extend your contract up to 36 months.
• On-the-job and formal training including language classes.