Senior / Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist (AI Agents)

TL;DR

Senior / Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist (AI Agents): Studying and developing data strategies for state-of-the-art autonomous agents with an accent on RL reward signals and agent environments. Focus on building foundational evaluation tools and translating research into scalable real-world solutions.

Location: San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; New York, NY

Salary: $218,400 - $273,000 USD

Company

Scale AI is a leading AI data foundry accelerating the development of AI applications, specializing in generative AI, defense, and autonomous vehicles.

What you will do

• Explore the data landscape essential for building state-of-the-art browser and SWE agents.
• Guide the data strategy at Scale to drive innovation in intelligent, adaptable AI agents.
• Contribute to impactful research publications on agents in top ML venues.
• Collaborate with customer researchers and engineering teams to implement advancements.
• Translate theoretical research into real-world, scalable AI solutions.

Requirements

• Practical experience with LLMs and proficiency in Pytorch, Jax, or Tensorflow.
• Proven track record of published research in top ML venues (e.g., ACL, EMNLP, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR).
• At least three years of experience addressing sophisticated ML problems in research or product development.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Must be based in San Francisco, Seattle, or New York.

Nice to have

• Experience with open source or bespoke LLM fine-tuning.
• Publications in tool-use, text2SQL, browser, coding, or GUI agents.
• Hands-on experience with agent frameworks such as OpenHands, Swarm, or LangGraph.
• Familiarity with agentic reasoning methods like STaR and PLANSEARCH.
• Experience developing ML models in cloud environments (AWS or GCP).

Culture & Benefits

• Competitive compensation package including base salary and equity.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Retirement benefits and a learning and development stipend.
• Generous PTO and commuter stipend.
• Inclusive and equal opportunity workplace.