ML Team Lead (Sophea AI)

Location: Athens Workplace: Hybrid About the company: KIEFER is building Greece's integrated AI ecosystem. From renewable energy infrastructure and AI systems to robotics and enterprise applications, we connect the technologies that power Europe's intelligent future. Founded in 2014, KIEFER has delivered 600MW+ of energy projects and is now developing sovereign AI infrastructure, enterprise AI products and physical AI systems for Greece and Southeast Europe. About the role: We are looking for an ML Team Lead to join Kiefer Tech and lead our ML Engineering team. In this role, you will lead the development and continuous improvement of Sophea AI, our Greek-focused Large Language Model. You will work across LLM training, fine-tuning, ASR, inference optimization, model validation, and production-grade ML systems. Beyond the model itself, you will help shape the ML Engineering function at Kiefer Tech: define clear ownership, strengthen team workflows, raise technical standards, and ensure complex ML initiatives are delivered with accountability, clarity, and strong execution. What you will do: - Lead the ML Engineering team working on Sophea AI and set a clear technical direction for its development - Own delivery across core ML workstreams, including LLM training, fine-tuning, ASR, inference optimization, model validation, and production-grade ML systems - Build a stronger operating model for the ML function: improve workflows, clarify ownership, strengthen decision-making, and remove execution blockers - Turn the ML roadmap into clear priorities, accountable workstreams, and measurable outcomes aligned with product and business goals - Mentor ML engineers, develop team capabilities, and bring stronger engineering practices, tools, and research-driven approaches into the team’s daily work What you will need: - Proven experience leading ML Engineering teams or complex ML workstreams in high-performance, fast-moving environments - Deep technical background in LLMs, ASR, and production-grade ML systems, including pre-training, training from scratch, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, model validation, and performance improvement - Strong understanding of inference optimization, model quantization, and serving frameworks such as vLLM, SGLang, NVIDIA Triton, NVIDIA Dynamo, or similar tools - Ability to bring structure into ambiguous environments: clarify ownership, improve workflows, and drive execution across several ML workstreams - High autonomy, strong communication skills, and the ability to follow current AI research and translate relevant tools, methods, and trends into team practice Nice to have: - Experience with MLOps infrastructure, model serving pipelines, GPU workload management, and experiment tracking - Contributions to open-source ML projects or published research in AI/ML - Familiarity with real-time inference systems or event-driven ML architectures What is there for you: - Compensation: highly competitive package aligned with AI talent benchmarks across Europe and the US - Ownership: high-impact leadership role with real influence on the ML Engineering function at Kiefer Tech - Work format: remote work option, with relocation support available for candidates open to working from our Athens office - AI-native environment: real challenges across LLMs, ASR, GPU workloads, and advanced AI product development - NVIDIA ecosystem: access to related conferences, certifications, internal knowledge sharing, and advanced AI infrastructure through Kiefer’s strategic collaboration - Culture: engineering-first, high autonomy, low bureaucracy, and space to shape meaningful AI products