Want to improve the lives of Australians, no matter who they are?   

Join us and build a career and future you’ll be proud of. 

Your opportunity 

As a Machine Learning Engineer, you will develop impactful solutions. As a key member of our passionate machine learning and AI team within the Signal Processing department, you will drive forward the development of innovative solutions for individuals with hearing loss. Your work will span from creating groundbreaking innovations to applying advanced data analytics to extract valuable insights from our clinical data warehouse. This role is central to our mission of enhancing lives through data-driven innovation. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience programming in Python and a strong foundation in machine learning. 

Key responsibilities include:   

• ML/AI solution development for hearing health: Prototype, evaluate, and iterate ML/AI approaches (including LLM-enabled systems where appropriate) aligned to hearing health research and product needs as part of multi-disciplinary teams.  

• Evaluation and validation: Define success metrics; design reproducible evaluation and validation (including for LLM/agent systems) and support responsible, auditable delivery. 

• Develop and deliver Python solutions: Build and maintain Python applications and services that operationalise ML/AI solutions (e.g., internal tools, APIs, pipelines, agent/tool integrations), with a focus on reliability, testing, and maintainability. 

• Data understanding for ML: Perform rigorous data analysis to identify signals, define features/labels, detect bias or drift, and translate findings into better ML/AI systems. 

• Stay updated with the latest advancements in machine learning, AI and its potential applications in hearing healthcare, continuously enhancing skills and knowledge in these areas. 

What you’ll bring: 

We believe the successful candidate will have a proven track record of successfully designing, developing, testing, delivering and supporting commercial products. You’ll bring: 

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, data science, or related discipline.  

• Master’s degree or PhD desirable 

• 3+ years’ experience in a relevant research or industry role (5+ years preferred), with evidence of taking ML/AI work from idea to real-world use (e.g., deployed tools, reliable Python services, or validated research prototypes). 

• Experience building production-quality Python software, including modular design, testing, version control, and CI/CD practices 

• Demonstrated research capability through peer-reviewed publications and/or strong independent or collaborative research outputs. 

• Excellent Python skills  

• Experience with LLMs and/or NLP, including prompt/tool design, evaluation approaches, and integration into applications. 

• Strong foundation in machine learning algorithms and principles 

• Experience in developing, training, and deploying machine learning models  

• Containerisation experience (e.g., Docker) for packaging and deploying Python applications. 

• Cloud experience (e.g., Azure; or AWS/GCP equivalent) including deploying and operating services. 

• Familiarity with CI/CD (e.g., GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps) to automate testing, builds, and deployments. 

• Familiarity with deep learning frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch) 

• Ability to demonstrate initiative and creativity 

• Excellent at taking direction and executing with independence 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills 

• Strong critical thinking skills 

What matters most? It’s simple – your drive to help anyone and everyone who needs us. And you’ll see your role as a real responsibility and an incredible opportunity to make an impact on lives across the country. 

Why work at NAL?  

The National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL) is a world leader in hearing research and evidence-based innovation to improve hearing health and transform the lives of people with hearing difficulties. NAL collaborates with organisations around the world to innovate on novel solutions to hearing health services and technology, conducts sophisticated validation trials on treatment benefit, and provides insight into the needs of people with hearing loss and clinicians who treat them. NAL’s research findings are published in leading peer-reviewed journals and its innovations are used worldwide. NAL is the research division of Hearing Australia. 

Visit www.nal.gov.au to discover more! 

Let’s create the gold standard of hearing care

We will require the successful candidate to be willing to have a Police Check conducted (we pay), a current driver’s licence and must have rights to work in Australia.

Hearing Australia is an Equal Opportunity Employer and embraces diversity, equity and inclusion. We are passionate about building a diverse and inclusive culture from within.

We encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and applicants from different cultures who are bilingual to apply.

We are committed to facilitating a barrier-free recruitment process and work environment. If you require any accommodations, we welcome you to let us know so we can work with you to participate fully in our recruitment experience.