Research Scientist - AI

Location

Auckland, New Zealand

Work Arrangement

On-Site

Employment

Full-Time

Contract

6-month Fixed Term

Start Date

Jan 2027

About Us

We are a New Zealand health technology startup developing an AI-powered clinical analysis and reporting platform for use within hospital workflows. We aim to help clinicians interpret complex medical data and produce diagnostic reports supported by clear, traceable evidence. You will work directly with researchers, engineers and clinical collaborators to translate advanced methods into practical healthcare software.

About the Role

We are hiring two research scientists to develop specialist algorithms for arrhythmia detection and analysis. This role strictly suits recent PhD graduates, and PhD candidates who meet the submission deadline below and want to translate research into practical tools. You will work closely with the Technical Lead, engineers and clinical collaborators. Each researcher will take ownership of a portfolio of diagnostic tools, with the initial split shaped by priority conditions and complementary expertise. Your work will extend from experiments and validation through to integration and investigation of report-level errors.

The role will involve

  • Develop and improve signal-processing and ML algorithms for specialist arrhythmia detection, classification and measurement, according to agreed clinical priorities.

  • Prepare and analyse physiological datasets, assess signal and label quality, and work with clinical collaborators to understand annotations, ambiguity and relevant reference standards.

  • Design reproducible experiments, meaningful baselines and validation approaches, including appropriate patient-level separation and investigation of data leakage.

  • Evaluate performance, robustness and limitations across relevant recordings, populations, acquisition conditions and challenging cases. Investigate false positives, missed events and uncertainty.

  • Build efficient research workflows using Python, modern ML frameworks and GPU or HPC resources. Maintain traceable data, code, configurations and experiment results.

  • Package algorithms with documented inputs, outputs, assumptions, limitations and tests. Work with the AI Systems Engineer to integrate tools into reliable inference services.

  • Help define which tools are appropriate for each analysis and what their findings support. Evaluate tool-selection errors, combined findings and evidence used in draft reports with engineers and clinicians.

  • Contribute to technical validation, research documentation and hospital collaboration within agreed study and data-governance arrangements. Share methods, review colleagues' work and support integration beyond your own tool portfolio.

What We're Looking For

Essential

  • You MUST either have completed a PhD within the last 12 months, or be completing a PhD with your thesis submitted for examination by 30 November 2026. The PhD must be in Bioengineering, Biomedical or Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Signal Processing or a closely related discipline.

  • Strong foundations in machine learning, statistics and algorithm development, supported by substantial research work you can explain and reproduce.

  • Strong Python programming and experience with relevant frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow or scikit-learn.

  • Experience using GPU training and/or HPC environments, and handling complex or large-scale datasets.

  • Strong understanding of experimental design, model evaluation and validation, including how bias, data leakage and uncertainty affect interpretation.

  • Comfort with Linux, Git, notebooks and environment management, alongside the ability to develop documented, testable scientific code.

  • Ability to communicate scientific assumptions and limitations, collaborate across disciplines and follow research through to engineering integration.

  • Ability to work on-site in Newmarket, Auckland, and willing to travel to hospital sites when required.

Desirable

  • Experience with medical data such as EEG, PPG and wearable sensing.

  • Time-series learning, signal quality assessment, imbalanced data or external validation.

  • Cloud ML workflows, GPU compute, containers or model-serving tools.

  • Clinical research, healthcare technology, foundation models or AI agent workflows.

Location and Work Eligibility

Applicants MUST already hold New Zealand work rights permitting employment in this role. Visa sponsorship is not available. You must be based in Auckland or able to relocate before starting, for on-site work in Newmarket.

Please apply for ONE position only that best matches your skills and experience. Your application will also be considered for other suitable roles.