Inception is seeking an accomplished Director of R&D in Applied AI, with a proven track record of directing multi-program applied research portfolios, to lead our applied AI research function. This role offers the rare opportunity to set the technical direction across multiple flagship programs in parallel — including a foundation language model family and multi-agent and agentic systems research— while providing oversight to high-stakes client delivery tracks that bring those research outputs into production.
Ready to apply for roles like this?
Unlock the company name and direct application link. Subscribers get instant access to fresh jobs across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, many with visa support.
Unlock employer & apply directly
Responsibilities
- Own the active R&D portfolio end-to-end — research roadmap, milestones, resource allocation and quarterly reviews.
- Direct the foundation language model program end-to-end — pre-training, post-training (instruction tuning, alignment), evaluation (language quality, multilingual performance, and safety posture), and release.
- Provide oversight to high-stakes client and delivery tracks and run regular reviews with R&D team covering progress, blockers, and re-allocation decisions across active programs.
- Represent Inception R&D in CEO-, group-executive- and Board-level forums, with the ability to make impactful presentations.
- Own the most strategic external partnerships academic research partners, frontier-model labs, the hyperscaler partnership cadence, sister-organization safety teams, and evaluation and red-teaming vendors — and lead joint workstreams to closure.
- Lead a team of applied scientists and senior applied scientists through technical mentorship, performance and growth, hiring, and defining team shape and talent strategy.
- Set and enforce R&D quality standards across projects.
Qualifications
- M.Sc. or Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or an AI-related field. Specialization in NLP, large language models, or applied ML is highly desirable.
- Minimum 10 years of experience in AI / ML, with at least 4 years in a technical leadership or director-level role directing multiple concurrent research programs.
- Demonstrated ownership of at least one production foundation-model release end-to-end.
- Strong publication record in major NLP / ML venues, or an equivalent product-driven research and IP-filing track record.
- Production experience with Arabic or other lower-resource-language NLP at scale.
- Experience deploying AI Models into regulated or government contexts, including content moderation and policy-aligned guardrails.
- Hands-on familiarity with agentic-AI architectures — planning, tool use, multi-agent simulation.
- Excellent written and verbal communication.
What We Look For
If you are a performance-driven, inquisitive mind with the agility to adapt to ambiguity, you will fit right in. You should be eager to explore opportunities to build meaningful collaborations with stakeholders and aspire to create unique customer-centric solutions. Bias for action and a passion to conquer new frontiers in the AI space is at the heart of the Inception community.
What Working At Inception Offers
- Culture: An open, diverse and inclusive environment with a global vision that encourages personal growth and focuses on ground-breaking, industry-first innovations.
- Career: Outstanding learning, development & growth opportunities via structured training programs and innovative, high-tech projects.
- Rewards: A competitive remuneration package with a host of perks including healthcare, education support, leave benefits and more.
If you can confidently demonstrate that you meet the criteria above, please contact us as soon as possible.
