AI & Data Specialist (Open also To Protected Categories, Law 68/99)

Location: Gorgonzola, Italy

Thales people architect solutions that are relied upon to deliver operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defensive systems for land, sea, and air. From early warning, to threat neutralisation, our platforms cover all levels from very short-range systems, to extended protection across the entire battle-space including Airspace Mobility Solutions, Vehicles and Tactical Systems and Missile Defence, Optronics, and Radar.

Gorgonzola hosts Navigations Air Systems (NAS) domain. The activity of NAS domain: avionics, navigation and radar systems for civil air traffic and technologies supporting the activities of civilian and military pilots, ATC controllers and technicians of several airlines, air traffic control agencies and Air Force around the world. Italy is the Group’s Competence center for the design, production and delivery of Navigation Aids products and Competence Centre for the delivery of non-Radar Surveillance Products.

Overview

We are looking for an AI and Data Specialist to support the design, development, and deployment of AI-driven solutions. This role is primarily focused on AI, while also contributing to the data analysis, preparation, and reporting activities required to build AI models.
The ideal candidate is a junior professional with strong technical foundations. They should be comfortable moving between experimentation, implementation and communication of results to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• AI solutions development:
• Design, train, test, and deploy AI-based solutions to solve business problems
• Translate theoretical research and emerging AI techniques into practical and scalable applications. Evaluate and select appropriate approaches depending on the use case
• Support the business AI strategy by identifying relevant opportunities for automation, prediction, optimization, and intelligent decision support. Contribute ideas on how AI can create value across processes, products and services
• Support the full AI lifecycle, including problem framing, model development, validation, deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement
• Contribute to the development of prototypes, PoCs and production-ready AI tools
• Assess model performance and recommend improvements based on business objectives and technical constraints
• Support decision-making on model selection, feature engineering, optimization techniques, and deployment options
• Help define best practices for responsible, reliable and efficient use of AI within NAS
• Stay informed about new tools, frameworks, and trends in AI and data analytics and continuously assess their practical relevance for the business
• Data analysis:
• Help build and improve the data systems and pipelines needed to inform AI models
• Assist in the collection, cleaning, transformation, interpretation, and visualization of complex datasets
• Perform exploratory data analysis to identify patterns, anomalies, correlations, and opportunities for model improvement
• Ensure data quality, consistency, and usability for AI and analytics purposes
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to define data requirements and ensure availability of relevant information
• Contribute to the creation and maintenance of structured datasets for model training and evaluation
• Reporting and Visualization
• Produce clear and insightful dashboards/reports to communicate findings and support decision-making
• Present technical results in a way that is understandable and actionable for non-technical audiences.

Skills and qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science or related field, with foundational experience in AI model development
• Familiarity with Generative AI, LLM-based applications, prompt engineering, pretrained model and finetuning, retrieval-augmented generation systems, AI agent and assistants
• Basic understanding of MLOps, model deployment, monitoring and maintenance
• Awareness of AI governance, ethics, bias, explainability, and data privacy principles
• Proficiency in Python and experience working with common AI/data framework and libraries (such us Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, Pytorch, Tensorflow, Keras, HuggingFace, LangChain, Ollama, etc.)
• Familiarity with machine learning workflows, model evaluation protocols and performance metrics
• Basic knowledge of advanced AI paradigms (such as Online Learning, Continual Learning, Reinforcement Learning) for NLP, Computer Vision and signal processing
• Experience with data visualization libraries and reporting tools (such as Power BI, Matplotlib, Seaborn)
• Strong SQL skills, knowledge of relational DBs and confidence working with structured and unstructured datasets
• Familiarity with REST APIs and service integration for AI-driven applications.
• Problem-solving mindset with the ability to work independently on well-defined tasks and projects
• Attention to detail and a structured approach to experimentation and validation
• Familiarity with versioning control systems (Git/GitLab), containerization tools (Docker) and collaborative development practices

Key Competencies

• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills
• Curiosity and willingness to learn quickly
• Ability to bridge business needs and technical implementation
• Pragmatic approach to experimentation and delivery
• Ownership and accountability in managing tasks independently
• Good communication and stakeholder management skills
• Ability to prioritize and work across multiple initiatives

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working. Great journeys start here, apply now!