Senior AI/ML Engineer

We are looking for a highly skilled Senior AI/ML Engineer (AI Lead) to take ownership of Custom Surgical’s AI technical direction and help translate real-world clinical data into robust, scalable AI systems. This role combines hands-on technical leadership with strong product and system thinking. You will design, build, and guide AI/ML solutions across computer vision, multimodal models, and emerging AI capabilities, working closely with Engineering, Product, and clinical stakeholders. You will play a key role in shaping how AI is applied across Custom Surgical’s products, ensuring technical excellence while enabling long-term scalability, reliability, and regulatory readiness. Tasks Own and drive the technical direction of AI/ML development across Custom Surgical; Design, implement, and maintain computer vision and multimodal ML systems for real-world clinical data; Lead model development from experimentation to production, ensuring robustness, performance, and scalability; Define best practices for training pipelines, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring of ML models; Collaborate closely with Product and Engineering to align AI capabilities with real user workflows; Mentor and support junior and mid-level AI/ML engineers through reviews, guidance, and technical leadership; Contribute to architectural decisions around data pipelines, model lifecycle, and infrastructure; Ensure AI systems are built with quality, safety, and regulatory constraints in mind; Stay up to date with advances in AI/ML and assess their relevance for real-world medical applications. Requirements Strong experience as an AI/ML Engineer working on production-grade systems; Solid background in computer vision and deep learning; Hands-on experience with PyTorch or TensorFlow; Strong proficiency in Python and ML experimentation workflows; Experience taking ML models from research to production environments; Ability to design and reason about end-to-end ML systems, not just individual models; Experience collaborating with software engineers and product teams; Fluency in English (spoken and written); Based in Munich or willing to relocate (on-site collaboration required). Nice to have (but not required): Experience with LLMs or multimodal AI systems; Background in medical imaging, healthcare, or regulated environments; Experience with cloud-based ML infrastructure (e.g. GCP, AWS); Prior experience in a technical leadership or mentoring role; Familiarity with data annotation workflows or weak supervision techniques. What we expect from Custom Surgical Candidates: You are an owner — you take end-to-end responsibility for complex technical problems and drive long-term improvements; You have a growth mindset and enjoy building systems that evolve over time; You’re proactive and solutions-oriented — you work across teams to unblock progress and deliver outcomes when it matters; You are open, sincere, and comfortable giving and receiving frequent feedback; You thrive in an international, young, and flexible company; You communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders; You enjoy mentoring others and raising the technical bar of the team. Benefits Time flexibility and trust-based working culture; Home office when needed, with on-site collaboration in Munich; No unnecessary bureaucracy — high autonomy to shape AI architecture and priorities; WellPass/Deutschlandticket + JobRad bike leasing with insurance; Direct impact on products used daily by clinicians worldwide; The opportunity to define how AI is responsibly deployed in a regulated medical domain. Custom Surgical is building the digital infrastructure for global eye care — from smart imaging hardware to AI diagnostics. Used in 80+ countries, our plug-and-play tools and cloud platform empower eye doctors to digitize their workflow, streamline collaboration, and improve outcomes. We're on a mission to make ophthalmology smarter, more accessible, and powered by data.