Overview

Research Technical Manager, AI for Autonomous Service Assurance
BT Group, Bristol, England, United Kingdom

Role: This is a technical expert role in Research and Network Strategy where the individual applies expertise within a clearly defined sphere of technical knowledge to complex business issues or opportunities. The role holder actively engages with colleagues to progress new research and supports the realisation of business value from research and innovation outputs. This role focuses on developing assurance solutions and reducing operating costs to grow market share and improve customer experience. A background in Telecoms is not essential, but experience in data science and machine learning, AI, and programmable networks is important. The role is based in Bristol with a hybrid model requiring in-office presence three days per week.

Responsibilities

• Leading and managing one or more related research projects and activities with matrixed resources inside and outside BT, including university students and vendors.
• Proactively engaging with working-level stakeholders across the organisation and external partners as appropriate.
• Engaging with relevant business units to downstream strategic technologies for commercial realisation.
• Maintaining domain expertise in a specific technical area.
• Managing intellectual property creation, patent filing in the domain, and supporting IPR exploitation where appropriate.
• Defining and performing research in a specific domain (e.g., Autonomous Service Assurance) that is typically unknown, complex, high impact and high value across multiple domains.
• Authoring thought leadership technical papers and capturing intellectual property.
• Supervising professionals, graduates and postgraduate students and coordinating placements/secondments.
• Depending on business needs, may manage Research Specialists, Professionals or other team members.

Skills

• Technical domain expert with deep expertise in a key technical area and ongoing development to be recognised as an expert in that domain.
• Qualifications: strong academic record in technology with postgraduate qualification(s) (PhD or equivalent).
• Expert communicator: regularly presents to peers and managers about research and technical expertise.
• Experience in open innovation: patenting, technical publications, conference presentations, etc.
• Storytelling with data: ability to build the case for change using data and analytics and communicate to business audiences.
• Concept evaluation: ability to spot relevant innovations, horizon scan, determine business relevance, develop conceptualisation and build trials.

Experience

• Technical domain expert with significant knowledge relevant to Autonomous Service Assurance, including:
• Network and service performance,
• User and application QoE,
• Data science,
• Statistics and signal processing,
• AI/ML including time-series and spatio-temporal graph techniques,
• Software development,
• Big data, telemetry and streaming.
• Delivery impact through research (MANDATORY).
• Stakeholder management across business units at various grades (MANDATORY).
• Innovative thinker: ability to identify and bring in new innovations to create value (MANDATORY).
• Commercial applicability: understanding business case principles and value proposition for innovations (MANDATORY).
• Strong awareness of industry trends and future directions.
• Self-starter with proactive approach and problem-solving mindset.

Benefits

• 10% on-target bonus
• BT Pension scheme: minimum 5% employee contribution, BT contribution 10%
• From January 2025, equal family leave: 18 weeks full pay, 8 weeks half pay, 26 weeks at statutory rate
• Enhanced women’s health support
• 25 days annual leave (plus bank holidays), increasing with service
• 24/7 private virtual GP appointments for UK colleagues
• 2 weeks carer’s leave
• World-class training and development opportunities
• Option to join BT Shares Saving schemes

Our leadership standards

Leading inclusively and Safely: I inspire and build trust through self-awareness, honesty and integrity. Owning outcomes: I take the right decisions that benefit the broader organisation. Delivering for the customer: I execute brilliantly on clear priorities that add value to our customers and the wider business. Commercially savvy: I demonstrate strong commercial focus, bringing an external perspective to decision-making. Growth mindset: I experiment and identify opportunities for growth for both myself and the organisation. Building for the future: I build diverse future-ready teams where all individuals can be at their best.

About Us

BT Group was the world’s first telco with a heritage in the sector. We are responsible for iconic brands such as BT, EE, Openreach and Plusnet, and are at an inflection point in transforming our business. We are delivering the UK’s largest digital infrastructure project to connect more than 25 million premises to full fibre, investing in 5G, and reimagining the customer experience. We are focused on radical simplification of systems, structures, and processes at scale, applying AI and technology to create the UK’s best telco.

A few points to note: roles are listed as full-time, but flexible working arrangements can be considered. Reasonable adjustments for the selection process are available upon request. If you don’t meet every requirement, please apply anyway — you may be the right candidate for this or other roles in our wider team.

Additional information

• Seniority level: Not Applicable
• Employment type: Full-time
• Job function: Engineering and Information Technology
• Industries: Telecommunications