About KITALA

Kitala.ai, powered by YUX Design, is a data annotation and AI evaluation platform dedicated to grounding large language models in local realities. By leveraging a network of annotators and community leaders across 22 African countries, it captures the linguistic nuances and social norms that standard crowdsourcing often misses. Kitala’s services include Stereotype & Bias Evaluation, Live LLM Testing, and the creation of Culturally Grounded Q&A datasets for high-stakes sectors like maternal health and inclusive finance. Ultimately, Kitala serves as an essential safety layer for AI deployment in Africa, ensuring models are accurate, safe, and truly reflective of the communities they serve.

What are we looking for

We are seeking a driven and experienced Mid-Level ML Engineer/Researcher to spearhead the development and refinement of our LLM evaluation and localization initiatives. You will bridge the gap between research and implementation, contributing to both the strategic direction and practical execution of our projects..

Your missions

• Design and implement robust data collection strategies, ensuring ethical and culturally sensitive practices. Oversee data annotation and quality control processes while providing coaching and support to junior team members.
• Fine-tune, evaluate, and optimize LLMs using our curated datasets, with a focus on enhancing cultural relevance, reducing bias, and improving performance across diverse African contexts.
• Develop and maintain scalable data processing pipelines for cleaning, annotating, and transforming data, optimizing for efficiency and performance.
• Contribute significantly to the development and enhancement of our online platform for dataset access and LLM evaluation tools, ensuring a user-friendly and efficient experience.
• Conduct in-depth research on culturally relevant AI development, identifying emerging trends and contributing to publications and presentations.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior team members, fostering a collaborative and knowledge-sharing environment.
• Manage and optimize our cloud computing environment (ideally Google Cloud), ensuring efficient resource utilization and scalability.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams, including behavioral researchers, software engineers, and product managers, to ensure seamless project execution and clear communication.

Qualifications 

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field.
• 2-5 years of experience in AI/ML research or development, with a strong focus on natural language processing (NLP) and LLMs.
• Deep understanding of LLM architectures, training methodologies, and evaluation metrics.
• Experience with AI evaluation and creating benchmark datasets
• Demonstrated experience with Speech to text and Translation models and / or unstructured data is a plus.
• Strong programming skills in Python and experience with relevant machine learning libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, Hugging Face Transformers).
• Experience in building and deploying machine learning models in production environments.
• An experience with cloud computing platforms, particularly the Google Cloud & Vertex environment is a plus.
• Strong interest in responsible AI principles and ethical considerations in AI development.
• Proficiency in English
• Experience with leading small technical teams or projects is a plus.
   

Other stuff

• Contract : Full-time / 40 hours per week
• Women candidates are strongly encouraged to apply
• We offer competitive salaries, non-material benefits - read more about it here - however we’re still a self-funded African SME, so don’t apply if you're still somewhat attracted by big corporate or NGO money, cars and suits!.

Are you interested?

Please send your CV, a portfolio/links to your work and a few words of motivation (not a formal letter!) by clicking on the button below. Best of luck!"