Senior Technologist - Birkbeck Centre for Creative AI

Job description

Can you get open-source AI models running, keep them running, and help artists, media practitioners, students and researchers do genuinely new things with them?

Birkbeck is establishing a Centre for Creative AI: a new, £1.97m facility opening in autumn 2026. We are looking for a Senior Technologist to build and sustain its technical foundations.

Can you get open-source AI models running, keep them running, and help artists, media practitioners, students and researchers do genuinely new things with them?

Birkbeck is establishing a Centre for Creative AI: a new, £1.97m facility opening in autumn 2026. We are looking for a Senior Technologist to build and sustain its technical foundations.

The Centre is committed to working with AI systems openly and ethically. Its core is a studio of high-performance GPU workstations hosting open-source models locally (image, video, audio and language) where staff and students can see, adjust and interrogate how these systems actually work. You will make that possible by installing, configuring and maintaining local model deployments and GPU environments, managing dependencies and inference serving, supporting node-based workflows, dataset preparation, fine-tuning and LoRA training, and evaluating new models and tools as the field moves. You will also manage access to commercial AI platforms and APIs, including licensing, cost control and responsible use.

The Centre also includes a multi-function production space with a large-format LED wall for virtual production, and a soundproofed editing and podcasting suite. You will support teaching and creative work across all three spaces, working with established media production and studio workflows, line-manage the Centre's Audiovisual and Digital Technologist and work closely with colleagues in the Immersive Learning Centre.

You will need real technical depth: comfort with Python environments, command-line tools and model repositories, and a working understanding of GPU and VRAM constraints. Equally, you will need to explain all of it clearly to people with very different levels of technical confidence, and to think carefully about licensing, copyright, data provenance, privacy, bias, accessibility and sustainability, questions the Centre treats as central to its work rather than as compliance.

You might come from a research computing, creative technology, studio or industry background, or be an artist or media practitioner who has deepened your knowledge on the technical side. We are more interested in what you can actually do with these systems than in the route you took.

The post sits within Digital Education and works closely with the School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication, supporting teaching, research, student practice and public programming. It is an unusual opportunity to shape a new Centre from its first year.

Birkbeck is a research-intensive university in Bloomsbury with a distinctive commitment to evening study and a diverse student body.

Contract

The full-time role (35 hours/week) is offered on an open-ended basis.

Birkbeck has a flexible working policy, but this role requires regular on-campus work during term time, including evenings, to support teaching, Centre activities, meetings and events

Salary and benefits:

Grade 8 of the College's London Pay Scale which is £51,713.00 to £60,858.00 per annum. This includes a consolidated Weighting/Allowance for staff whose normal contractual place of work is in London. Birkbeck offers a competitive salary and pension scheme and 31 days paid leave.

Enquiries:

If you would like to know more about the role, contact Co-director Scott Rodgers ( [email protected] ) or Brett Lucas, Director of Digital Education ( [email protected] ). To apply, complete the application form. Candidates must clearly explain how they meet ALL the essential criteria for this post to be shortlisted.

For technical issues with the recruitment portal, please contact [email protected] providing your name and the job reference number.