Senior / Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist, Agents (AI)

Salary: $302,400–$378,000 USD per year, plus potential equity and benefits.

Company

Scale AI develops data, evaluation, and full-stack technologies that support reliable AI systems and applications for enterprises and governments.

What you will do

• Research data types and programs for advanced autonomous agents, including browser and software-engineering agents.
• Study agent environments, reinforcement learning reward signals, and evaluation methods.
• Benchmark autonomous agent performance across real-world scenarios, code repositories, graphical interfaces, and browsers.
• Build tools and frameworks for evaluating language models as agents.
• Prototype research ideas and translate them into scalable solutions with engineering and customer research teams.
• Contribute to research publications on AI agents.

Requirements

• Practical experience working with large language models and machine learning research or product development.
• Proficiency with at least one of PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow.
• Ability to interpret research literature and quickly turn ideas into working prototypes.
• Published research in leading machine learning venues such as ACL, EMNLP, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, or COLM.
• At least three years of experience solving sophisticated machine learning problems.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to work cross-functionally.

Nice to have

• Experience fine-tuning open-source or bespoke large language models.
• Experience building or evaluating tool-use, text-to-SQL, browser, coding, or graphical user interface agents.
• Experience with agent frameworks such as OpenHands, Swarm, or LangGraph.
• Familiarity with agentic reasoning methods such as STaR and PLANSEARCH.
• Experience with AWS or GCP and machine learning development in cloud environments.

Culture & Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Retirement benefits and generous paid time off.
• Learning and development stipend.
• Potential commuter stipend and equity compensation for eligible roles.
• Inclusive equal-opportunity workplace with reasonable accommodation support.

Hiring process

• Research interviews assess practical machine learning prototyping and debugging skills, research knowledge, and organizational alignment.
• No LeetCode-style questions are used.
• Candidates must wait 90 days before being reconsidered for the same role.