Ml & Search Lead

**About Haast**:
We're not just talking about AI - we're building one of the first enterprise-grade LLM implementations that delivers real, measurable value to compliance and legal teams TODAY.

For the last 2 years, we've been transforming how organisations handle compliance from a painful checkbox exercise into a smooth, intelligent process. Our AI-powered platform is helping legal, compliance, and marketing teams revolutionise their operations with 80% faster reviews and 4x productivity boosts. (And yes,we triple-checked those numbers)

Why is this exciting? Because we're surfing the biggest wave in enterprise tech - the AI revolution. As the regtech industry rockets toward a $50 billion future, we're proudly flying the Australian flag on the global stage.

Think about it: Design has Canva. Projects have Trello. Now, Compliance has Haast.

**The Role**:
As ML & Search Lead at Haast, you'll guide our ML strategy and mentor our growing team while directly contributing to our search and AI architecture. You'll be responsible for designing and implementing hybrid search methods that blend cutting-edge search databases with large language models, while building and leading a high-performing technical team. We're looking for someone who combines technical excellence with leadership skills to drive innovation in AI compliance detection.

**Impact You'll Make**:

- Lead and mentor the ML & Search team while maintaining hands-on development
- Design and implement hybrid RAG architectures combining search databases and LLMs
- Define ML strategy and roadmap for our compliance detection platform
- Drive research and implementation of new ML and search capabilities
- Establish best practices for model evaluation and deployment
- Build and maintain robust benchmarking systems
- Collaborate with leadership on technical direction and resource planning
- Guide the team in optimising search infrastructure for high-performance processing

**What You'll Bring**:
**Must Have**:

- 5+ years of experience in ML or search engineering
- Track record of leading technical teams and mentoring engineers
- Strong proficiency in Python with production ML system experience
- Deep expertise with search technologies (Vespa, OpenSearch)
- Experience architecting and scaling ML systems
- Proven ability to balance technical leadership with hands-on development
- Passion for listening to the customer voice
- Strong understanding of ML benchmarking and evaluation methods
- Experience managing ML infrastructure and deployment pipelines

**Nice to Have**:

- Experience with Large Language Models and RAG architectures
- Background in building and maintaining benchmarking systems
- Research experience or publications in ML/Search
- Experience scaling teams in high-growth environments
- Data engineering expertise
- Track record of successful ML product delivery
- Experience presenting technical vision to stakeholders
- Background in compliance or regulatory technology

**Why Haast?**:
**Growth & Impact**:

- Leading the evolution from dull, traditional SaaS to AI-powered workflows (because nobody ever said "I love manually reviewing disclaimers")
- Build enterprise-grade AI technology that major institutions actually trust (and love)
- Empowering humans to focus on strategic work they love by eliminating tedious compliance reviews
- Creating technology that builds customer trust and protects consumer rights

**Benefits & Culture**:

- Sydney-based with flexible work arrangements (because life happens)
- Competitive salary and equity (ESOP) - we believe in sharing the success
- Rapid career growth - high performers get real opportunities, not just high fives and a monthly pizza party
- Work with cutting-edge AI technologies that your current employer claimed you would be
- Collaborative, engineering-driven culture focused on learning and development