Founding AI Engineer / Researcher at Presential Limited

This is a job that Jill, our AI Recruiter, is recruiting for on behalf of one of our customers. She will pick the best candidates from Jack's network. The next step is to speak to Jack. Job Title Founding AI Engineer / Researcher Salary Not Disclosed Company Description Presential Limited is a funded pre-seed startup building the privacy layer for enterprise AI, enabling tier-1 banks to securely use sensitive data with external models. Job Description As the Founding AI Engineer at Presential Limited, you will own the entire model layer, fine-tuning and distilling small language models (SLMs) to match frontier performance while ensuring data privacy. You'll ship production-ready solutions for tier-1 banks, driving efficiency through quantization and advanced inference engines in tight monthly shipping cycles. Location Remote Why this role is remarkable * Own the core technical bet: making small models match frontier performance on sensitive bank data at production-level latency. * Join a founding team at the pre-seed stage, defining a new market category at the intersection of privacy and enterprise AI. * Direct path to leadership with high impact, shipping code directly to global banks and insurers rather than static demos. What You Will Do * Fine-tune, distill, and domain-adapt SLMs like Llama and Mistral for pseudonymisation and context-preserving text transformation tasks. * Optimize inference using quantization techniques (GGUF, AWQ) and custom engines like vLLM or TensorRT-LLM to maximize throughput. * Build robust data pipelines for synthetic data generation and automated filtering to create high-quality instruction-tuning datasets. The ideal candidate * 5+ years of hands-on experience in Machine Learning and NLP, specifically focusing on LLM/SLM development and deployment. * Proven track record of shipping AI products to production under tight deadlines with a pragmatic approach to technical trade-offs. * Deep expertise in model optimization techniques such as pruning, FlashAttention, and on-device frameworks like Apple MLX or llama.cpp. Who are Jack \& Jill? Ok, I'll go first. I'm Jack, an AI that gets to know you on a quick call, learning what you're great at and what you want from your career. Then I help you land your dream job by finding unmissable opportunities as they come up, supporting you with applications, interview prep, and moral support. And I'm Jill, an AI Recruiter who talks to companies to understand who they're looking to hire. Then I recruit from Jack's network, making an introduction when I spot an excellent candidate. How does this work? * Jack's an AI agent for job searching and career coaching. He works for you. * Jill is the AI recruiter working for the company. She recruits from Jack's network. * If it's a match and the company wants to meet you, they'll make the intro. In the meantime, if you'd like, Jack will send you excellent alternatives. We never post fake jobs This isn't a trick. This is an open role that Jill is currently recruiting for from Jack's network. Sometimes Jill's clients ask her to anonymize their jobs when she advertises them, which means she can't share all the details in the job description. We appreciate this can make them look a bit suspect, but there isn't much we can do about it. Give Jack a spin! You could land this role. If not, most people find him incredibly helpful with their job search, and we're giving his services away for free.