Data Scientists & Data Engineers

Location

RAF Wyton, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, PE28 2EA

About the job Summary

You love maths, science and engineering. You love data and building models to describe it. You want to use that passion to save lives and make a difference in the world, while advancing your career at a single, stable, supportive and cutting-edge laboratory. If that sounds like you then come work for us! 

We have a range of opportunities, for aspiring to expert Data Scientists and Data Engineers. We want technical specialists from traditional academic or industry roles because your numeracy and statistical skills make excellent foundations for developing contemporary Data Scientists and Data Engineers.

We want experienced people looking for tough new challenges to work on our complex, classified and fascinating datasets you simply can’t access anywhere else.

If you love travelling but don’t want to move home every few years, we can even offer you the adventure of deploying your skills directly in support of operations, domestically and overseas.

Dstl recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion as people from diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment in which each employee fulfils their potential and maximises their contribution. 

We particularly welcome female and ethnic minority applicants and those from the LGBTQI community, as they are under-represented within Dstl at these levels.

Job description

We are the Intelligence Innovation Group within Cyber and Information System Division. The teams are made up of multi-disciplinary scientists, analysts, engineers and consultants, We research novel AI and Data Science applications and help deploy them directly with Defence and Security partners (e.g. Defence Intelligence, UK Special Forces, F-35 project teams), partners across UK Government, and internationally (especially in the 5-Eyes community). 

We implement a variety of traditional engineering, numerical and statistical approaches together with state-of-the-art machine learning and deep neural networks to a huge variety of applications, including:

• Image and video analytics
• Geospatial Analysis
• Text analytics and natural language processing
• Radar, radio frequency and acoustics analysis
• Data collection, processing, fusion and visualisation
• Big data engineering and data flow orchestration

Not everything we do is highly classified. We love to publish academic papers and file patents. We've used open competitions (e.g. Kaggle) to access the very best worldwide expertise in machine vision. And we've sought to harness the power of the open source software community through the release of various tools on Github, for example Baleen and Stone Soup (Github - Dstl). 

We give our people the freedom to think and innovate; working with like-minded scientists passionate about delivering quality technical solutions in a friendly and encouraging environment. And we offer loads of opportunities to keep up-to-date with the latest developments, through training and scholarships, attending and presenting at conferences, and working closely with industry and academic colleagues.

Responsibilities

We are looking for someone who has:

• The ability to apply statistical rigour, critical thinking and creative problem solving to a variety of data sets (e.g. text, imagery, geospatial, time-series), seeking out new, high-risk, high payoff technologies.
• A passion for programming in modern languages, and a solid understanding of relevant architectures (see more below)
• A natural curiosity and independent drive to research, experiment and understand
• Enthusiasm and experience in applying AI, ML and Data Science techniques to complex problems.
• For senior roles, leadership and collaboration experience
• For deployed roles, a willingness and ability to work domestically and overseas, sometimes in operational environments

Important Information:
Our work in defence, security and intelligence requires our employees to be UK Nationals  who are able to gain a high level of security clearance to undertake the projects we are involved in to protect us from security threats. For this reason, only UK Nationals will be able to apply for this role. If you are an international or dual-national candidate, and you think you have the skills we need, please consider applying to any of our government, security or defence partners. 

This role will require full UK security clearance and you should have resided in the UK for the past 5 years.  For some roles Developed Vetting will also be required, in this case you should have resided in the UK for the past 10 years.

Work location:
Dstl is strongly encouraging blended and flexible working either at one of our sites or from home or both. We want to empower you to undertake your duties at the most appropriate location for the task, however you will be allocated a Dstl site as a base. You may be required to travel to other Dstl and MoD sites as required.  

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Changing and Improving
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace
• Developing Self and Others

Benefits

We'll provide a great range of benefits including;

Fully flexible working, including alternative working patterns, annualised hours, compressed hours and job share, to name a few.
Flexible Working hours, a 12 month reference period and the ability to bank hours. Up to 37 hours can be taken in any calendar month.
Excellent learning and development to ensure everyone fulfils their potential.
Maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay followed by 13 weeks statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, and paternity leave of 2 weeks full pay.
Chartership and accreditation support.
Pension.
Generous annual leave, with the ability to buy and sell up to 5 days holiday per year.
A competitive salary. Onsite gyms and restaurants.Staff discounts for high street and online shopping, restaurants and days out.

Our Diversity Networks

Dstl recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion as people from diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment in which each employee fulfils their potential and maximises their contribution. We have a number of support networks to ensure all employees feel supported at work.

These include the following;

- Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Network

- Race, Faith and Culture Network

- Parents and Carer Support Network

- Alternative Working Network

- Gender Equality Network

- New Starters Network

- Enabled Network, for people with visible and non-visible disabilities.