AI Founding Engineer: RF Machine Learning (SIGINT) (f/m/d)

As the founding engineer for RF machine learning at Datacept, you will take responsibility for the cognitive core of our systems, turning raw I/Q data into detection, classification, and understanding of emitters for SIGINT and COMINT missions. You will design and train models that learn directly from raw I/Q recordings, research and implement ML methods from other domains, and define evaluation metrics that reflect real-world conditions. You will also ensure models are compact and deployable on edge hardware, integrate new data sources, and work closely with the founders to set the direction for RFML at Datacept.

Responsibilities

• Design and train models that learn from raw I/Q recordings: detection, classification, and more
• Research and implement ML methods from other domains to improve our data pipelines
• Define how we evaluate: test sets, metrics, and scenarios that reflect real conditions such as domain shift between sensors, sites, and interference environments
• Make models fit the hardware: Besides the foundation model we need expert models that are also compact and deployable on edge
• Continuous testing of all pipelines in real world conditions provides continuous feedback
• Integrate new data sources into our data platform

Requirements

• You have built and shipped ML systems that people depend on, preferably on signal-like data: audio, time series, sensor streams, images, video or ideally RF
• You understand self-supervised learning well enough to explain why a given method works, and you can move ML ideas between domains with intent
• You have strong mathematical fundamentals and are comfortable when the problem first has to be formulated before it can be solved
• You go from idea to prototype to deployed model on your own, and you ask for help when it speeds things up rather than when you are stuck
• You work well with few fixed structures and changing priorities
• You are prepared for the intensity of a founding role: long and unconventional working hours, field trials, deployments
• You want to contribute to Europe's technological sovereignty in a domain where it is currently lacking

Nice to have

• Prior work in RF or signal-centric ML: spectrum sensing, modulation recognition, SIGINT, EW. We are just as interested in people from adjacent domains who have shown they can reason about hard problems and are eager to learn
• Projects that you build yourself (in the software/hardware) space. We want people that can create things and not just implement a set of requirements.
• Signal processing basics: sampling, spectral analysis, I/Q representation
• SDR, communications engineering, or embedded background
• Publications, open-source work, or architectures that made it into production

Benefits

• Possibility to contribute to strengthening Europe's sovereignty
• Virtual shares (VSOP) as part of the founding engineer package
• A development and compensation roadmap that we define together and that grows with the company
• Remote work with full mobile equipment, plus a workplace at both of our locations: Hamburg HafenCity (HQ) and Horneburg (R&D)
• Insights & Access to real RF data, real hardware, and real deployments