Research Scientist (Machine Learning)

Description

Onfido uses machine learning to help over 1,500 companies verify the identity of their users online.

Founded in 2012, we've received over $60m in funding from world-class technology investors including Salesforce and Microsoft. As a team of 180 with offices in 5 countries, we work with global customers including BBVA, Square and LendingKart.

Our technology verifies the authenticity of a user’s identity document and compares it with their facial biometrics. As a global innovator in the Computer Vision space, our AI learns to identity fraud as it evolves over time, enabling our clients to rapidly onboard more users while protecting themselves against fraudulent activity. Our goal is to apply cutting-edge research to build powerful, simple products that drive trust, inclusion and safety online.

THE ROLE:

Group: Technology | Function: Research

We are looking for machine learning and computer vision experts to help us shape and develop our ID verification solution. We apply cutting-edge ML techniques in our core product to classify documents, identify physical forgeries, extract data, verify user liveness, and match facial biometrics to securely verify the user’s identity. As part of the research team you will primarily help contribute to the general technical direction working with our product and engineering teams to develop new features that make use of either computer vision or machine learning models.

What problems are we trying to solve?

Our engineering teams work on several interesting challenges: detecting physical and digital forgeries, extracting textual and visual data from identity documents, evaluating photo content and quality, detect user impersonation attempts, verifying legitimate users through facial recognition, and making complex verification data easy for our customers to use and understand

Who are you:

Someone who has a passion for solving difficult problems, you should have practical experience working with computer vision and machine learning algorithms and love to keep at the cutting edge of the field. It would be advantageous if you have working knowledge of at least one of the most popular ML toolkits such as Tensorflow, Torch, Caffe or Theano and have worked on projects that include; computer vision, face verification, voice verification or deep learning.

You should hold a PhD in a related subject, exceptional candidates with an MSc will also be considered. Ideally also have industry experience in the area or spent time working as a research engineer.

We expect that you have a solid understanding of statistics, probability, linear algebra and calculus. You are a capable programmer and would feel comfortable coding in Python or C++. Communication is important so we expect you to be able to translate complex ideas into understandable content.

As a Research Scientist (Machine Learning) you will:

• Build and deploy solutions to interesting computer vision or machine learning problems including document data extraction, fraud detection or biometric verification challenges.
• Support and guide other engineers in learning about, applying and delivering product features driven by machine learning techniques.
• Help develop robust model training and data infrastructure to support continual optimisation of ML-driven approaches.
• Assist in steering the direction of research direction of the company.
• Participate in weekly paper reading groups.
• Publish research results in national and international conferences and scientific journals.
• Contribute to writing grant proposals and filing patents.
• Represent Onfido at national and international scientific conferences.

Requirements

What we're hoping to see highlighted on your CV and application:

Essential skills:

• PhD degree in Machine Learning, Computer Vision or a related quantitative field, or MSc degree with related experience.
• Strong academic and research track record demonstrated through publication of papers in top scientific conferences and/or journals.

• Hands on experience using machine learning and/or computer vision.
• Good coding skills. (Python and C++ are considered a plus).
• Hands on experience using one of the following deep learning libraries: Tensorflow, PyTorch, Theano or similar.

Desirable skills:

• Experience in face analysis (verification, recognition, alignment-landmark localization, detection etc..)
• Successfully delivered ML-driven products to market.
• Ability to design large-scale systems.
• Experience working as a research engineer or equivalent.
• Experience with Git, writing shell scripts and working in a Unix environment.
• Good working knowledge of the tools in our dev stack, including Linux, AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Redis, Jenkins and Git.

Values and behaviours:

• Succeed Together - Share skills, ideas and honest feedback. Be excellent to each other.
• Take Pride - Deliver world-class quality and be an ambassador.
• Learn Things, Share Them - Seek out knowledge. Then, take what you learn and teach it to others.
• Find a Better Way - Fix what's broken and make what works even better.
• Create Customer Buzz - Craft an experience that customers rave about.

To be a great fit at Onfido, we look for individuals who share our values. We have over 35 nationalities in our growing team, making this an exciting and culturally enriching place to work. Check out the team and Life at Onfido!

Benefits

We're committed to making Onfido a fantastic place to work, so we go to great lengths to give you what you need to succeed. You will receive:

• Share options
• 25 days holiday, plus bank holidays
• Pension with The People’s Pension (employer contribution 3% of base salary)
• Personalised Financial Advice with St. James’ Place Wealth Management
• Bupa Health Cash Plan (Level 2)
• Sanctus mental health coaching
• Flexible working
• Childcare vouchers
• Payroll Giving
• Volunteer days - 2 days paid time off per year, in addition to holiday allowance, to volunteer
• Subsidised gym membership or home cleaning (50% up to £50 per month)
• Free yoga classes, 5-a-side football bookings
• Unlimited budget for any software or books you need
• Free languages classes (currently Spanish, French and English)
• A fully stocked kitchen with unlimited breakfast, drinks, snacks and fresh fruit every day
• Clubs: Coding, Running, Theatre, Games, Poker, Movies and many more!
• Quarterly socials (e.g. cookery classes, go-karting and private cinema trips)
• Open and transparent culture - we meet for a Friday afternoon forum (OnFriday) to engage peers informally over drinks.
• If you’re relocating from another country to join then we’ll get you an Airbnb for the first month.

OTHER INFORMATION

We are able to provide visa sponsorship for this role for the adequate skills and profile.

Live date: 13 Aug 2018

Closing date: 10 Sep 2018

SALARY INFORMATION

Salary: Competitive

INTERVIEW INFORMATION

The interview process will involve:

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at Onfido. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.