22nd October, 2026

Senior Research Engineer – AI/Machine Learning (Lead, EL1) – Federal Government | Victoria

12-month contract | Onsite at least 4 days a week | Eligibility to obtain NV1 clearance

Hunter Qualified is looking for a Senior Research Engineer to lead a high-impact applied AI project with a Federal Government agency.

You’ll design, build and evaluate a secure, human-in-the-loop AI system that triages extremist and distressing digital material. The aim is to reduce how much harmful content investigators are exposed to.

What you’ll do
Lead the design and build of a multimodal triage system, using computer vision, NLP, audio and similarity detection (hashing and near-duplicate detection)
Build secure, reproducible pipelines for data processing, model training and evaluation, including for restricted or disconnected environments
Turn the needs of investigators and wellbeing staff into technical specifications and a secure-review interface
Design rigorous evaluations, including precision and recall, calibration, adversarial testing and failure modes
Contribute to privacy, ethics, security and responsible AI assessments
Manage the technical plan, risks and reporting, and coordinate researchers and vendors

What you’ll bring




A postgraduate qualification in computer science, AI, data science or a related field, or equivalent experience
Experience delivering applied machine learning systems beyond the proof-of-concept stage
Strong experience in at least two of: computer vision, image or video classification, NLP, multimodal ML, perceptual hashing, or audio analysis
Advanced Python skills and experience with PyTorch
A strong understanding of classification performance, including class imbalance, thresholds and uncertainty
Experience working with sensitive or security-controlled information
The ability to explain model behaviour and limitations to non-technical stakeholders
Desirable: a PhD, a background in law enforcement, national security, digital forensics or online safety, and experience deploying on-premises or in air-gapped settings

Please note: This role involves controlled access to distressing material. Candidates will need to complete police, probity and explicit-material clearance checks. They must also be able to obtain a Negative Vetting Level 1 (NV1) clearance.

How to apply: Click “Apply” and submit your resume.

📌 Senior Research Engineer Melbourne
🏢 Hunter Professional
📍 Melbourne