Research Engineer (f/m/d)
At a glance
Mid-level AI Research role at Sonar. Bochum · full-time · €90,000–€160,000 base.
aimlroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Shape early research ideas with practical feedback, keeping investigations focused on useful and buildable product improvements
- Prototype agent workflows that help write clean code, trace system problems, and fix difficult bugs or security flaws
- Test research features by building datasets, setting success measures, and benchmarking with internal and external AI tools
- Create and maintain pipelines that collect, prepare, and version large code datasets for model training and evaluation
- Move proven prototypes into products with engineering and product teams, and document findings for technical and non-technical audiences
What you bring
- An advanced degree-level background in computer science, machine learning, or a related quantitative discipline
- At least two years of industry software engineering, with Python and other modern programming languages
- Hands-on use of agent frameworks, software automation, and LLM architectures, plus experience connecting external tools or libraries to prototypes
- A track record of independently taking research from an initial idea to a working prototype, including dataset creation and benchmark design
- Strong English communication skills and the ability to turn research results into clear, actionable guidance for product engineers
Who this fits
This role suits an engineer who can move between research questions and practical prototypes while keeping several active topics moving. You must be based in Bochum; relocation is available for the right candidate.
From the employer
Position description
At Sonar, we are seeking an innovative Research Engineer to join our Data & Agentic team and pioneer the next generation of our code analysis and verification engines. You will be at the forefront of applying cutting-edge AI, advanced agentic workflow and static analysis techniques to complex source code. Your work will directly shape our core products—ensuring both AI-generated and developer-written code meets rigorous enterprise quality and security standards. If you are driven to turn state-of-the-art research into practical, high-impact solutions, this is the role for you.
What you will do
- Create & Innovate: Actively participate in the conceptualization phase. Brainstorm novel ways to improve our products and provide immediate, practical feedback to steer exploratory research toward paths that are both impactful and engineering-feasible.
- Develop Agentic Workflows: Design, prototype, and validate intelligent agentic systems and automated workflows that facilitate writing clean code, identifying root causes of system issues, and remediating complex bugs and vulnerabilities.
- Develop Pragmatic Prototypes: Build hands-on prototypes that prove the viability and scalability of research concepts. Proactively identify engineering bottlenecks or scalability limits and propose effective mitigations early in the research phase.
- Evaluate & Benchmark: Drive the rigorous evaluation of new product features. Construct high-quality datasets, define relevant success metrics, and implement comprehensive benchmarks leveraging Sonar’s existing IP alongside third-party and open-source AI tools.
- Engineer Data Pipelines: Build and manage robust data pipelines to gather, process, and version massive code-centric datasets required for training and evaluating specialized models at scale.
- Translate Prototypes to Products: Collaborate closely with engineering and product teams to integrate successful prototypes into Sonar's cutting-edge products, ensuring they meet the needs of our global user base.
- Communicate and Evangelize: Clearly articulate and document complex technical concepts and research findings to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Experience and qualifications
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Advanced academic background in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related quantitative field.
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Strong software engineering experience (minimum 2+ years in industry) with proficiency in Python and major modern programming languages.
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Practical experience with modern agentic frameworks, software automation tools, and LLM architectures.
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Experience of driving research projects from initial ideation to a demonstrable prototype with a high degree of autonomy.
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Hands-on experience integrating third-party tools, program analysis frameworks, or open-source libraries into functional prototypes.
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Proven experience in data handling: constructing high-quality datasets, defining objective success metrics, and building robust benchmarks for new solutions.
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The ability to fast context-switch and maintain momentum across multiple concurrent, fast-moving research topics.
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Excellent communication skills in English, with a talent for translating complex research findings into clear, actionable artifacts for product engineering squads.
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Background in static analysis: abstract syntax trees (ASTs), code security, bug detection, etc..
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Familiarity with LLM techniques such as model fine-tuning, semantic search engines, etc.
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Experience with large-scale data processing frameworks and cloud infrastructure (e.g. AWS).
Must have:
Plus: