Role: Product Research Engineer (5G, AI & Cybersecurity)
Location: Singapore
Job Summary
We are partnering with a leading technology-driven telecommunications organization to hire a product-minded engineer who can identify commercially viable product opportunities at the intersection of 5G/6G networks, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity.
This role goes beyond traditional research, you will actively explore emerging technology trends, operator challenges, and enterprise needs, and translate them into tangible product concepts from ideation through to validated prototypes.
You will bridge deep technical expertise (RAN, core networks, AI/ML pipelines, and security architectures) with business impact. The outcome of your work will be real product ideas and roadmaps that can be funded, built, and brought to market.
Accountabilities
- Maintain a continuous pipeline of validated product ideas (minimum six per year) derived from 5G, AI, and security trends.
- Conduct market validation through at least 20 vendor engagements and industry partner engagements annually.
- Create roadmap for advanced technologies and platforms.
- Deliver working MVPs with measurable KPIs by working with software developers, vendors teams and university researchers.
- Produce two fully‑packaged product memos and Translate research into investable concepts.
- present monthly to leadership, and provide handover packages for funded ideas.
- Engage with industry partners such as regulators, universities and vendors for developing new products ideas.
- Develop new frameworks for AI security, agentic AI, Quantum security and its implications for 5G/6G network.
Responsibilities
- Generate & validate product ideas: Scan 5G/6G, AI, and security trends to identify unsolved problems; develop product hypotheses backed by customer discovery (minimum 20 interviews or engagements/year).
- Build MVPs & assess feasibility: Create lightweight prototypes on testbeds or cloud sandboxes, measuring KPIs (latency, detection rates, energy efficiency) that prove customer value for internal or external customers.
- Develop business cases & cost benefit analysis: Produce product memos, cost structure, cost benefit analyses, and competitive positioning for internal investment review.
- Protect IP & manage pipeline: Identify patentable inventions, file at least one disclosure annually, and maintain a rolling pipeline of six validated ideas per year.
- Bridge research & commercial teams : Translate academic outputs into product requirements, present monthly to leadership, and deliver handover packages for funded ideas.
- Support new initiatives by:
- Rapidly prototyping network architectures for proof‑of‑concepts (e.g., edge computing, 5G‑related workloads, AI/ML data pipelines).
- Advising product teams on cloud networking constraints, costs, and best practices.
- Building reusable, “batteries‑included” network modules that reduce time‑to‑network for innovation projects.
- Document network architectures, runbooks, and disaster recovery procedures.
- Participate in on‑call rotation for critical cloud network incidents.
Qualifications
- 2-5 years’ experience in telco industry as product manager or university research engineer.
- Bachelors of Engineering, Computer science or related field.
- Experienced in Software development, AI , 5G , and programming languages
- Proven product ideation – Has generated 3+ product concepts from emerging technologies (5G, edge AI, or telecom security) that progressed to prototype or commercial stage.
- Hands‑on 5G & AI prototyping: Built working prototypes on O‑RAN RIC, 5G core (Open5GS, Free5GC), or operator testbeds, using ML frameworks (PyTorch/TensorFlow) for real‑time network functions.
- Customer‑driven validation Conducted customer discovery interviews with telco operators, enterprise IT, or industrial users, translating pain points into product requirements.
- Business case delivery : Authored product memos with TAM/SAM/SOM, pricing models, and 3‑year revenue forecasts that secured internal funding or external investment.
- Bridge research & commercialisation : Successfully transitioned a research output (academic paper, thesis, or lab prototype) into a product roadmap, including handover to engineering or launch support