Applied Research Scientist – NLP (Senior)

We’re on a mission to democratize AI by building the definitive AI data development platform. The AI landscape has gone through incredible change between 2016, when Snorkel started as a research project in the Stanford AI Lab, to the generative AI breakthroughs of today. But one thing has remained constant: the data you use to build AI is the key to achieving differentiation, high performance, and production-ready systems. We work with some of the world’s largest organizations to empower scientists, engineers, financial experts, product creators, journalists, and more to build custom AI with their data faster than ever before. Excited to help us redefine how AI is built? Apply to be the newest Snorkeler!

(This role can either be remote or a hybrid role based in Redwood City, Redwood City + San Francisco, or New York City.) 

As an Applied Research Scientist, you will innovate and translate cutting edge research into user experiences. If you find yourself thinking about any of these questions:

• How to prompt a model like GPT-4 effectively?
• How to build a foundation model for a specific domain like medical records?
• How to use models like LayoutLM V3 for weakly labeling documents at scale?
• How to blend prompt engineering, retrieval augmentation, and fine-tuning to customize models with the least human time and effort?

We would love to hear from you! More broadly you will work on supervision (self-supervised, semi-supervised, weakly supervised etc) and representation learning methods which result in practical tooling for building and maintaining state-of-the-art machine learning models at scale.  

Main Responsibilities

• Establish and empirically demonstrate the state-of-the-art approaches for data-centric model iteration and analysis 
• Prototype end-to-end workflows with novel techniques and algorithms, synthesize results, and help to transfer learnings into Snorkel products
• Work closely with design partners to validate your work on real-world use cases with measurable impact
• Contribute to novel research on topics of interest to Snorkel AI by collaborating with other Snorkel Research scientists and affiliate scientists (academic, government, and industry researchers)
• Work a hybrid schedule with one or two days per week in our Redwood City HQ and work remotely with “No Meeting” Tuesdays and Thursdays

Preferred Qualifications

• Broad expertise and understanding of AI, NLP, LLM, and generative AI trends.
• Experience prototyping, experimenting, and testing with large scale datasets and training deep models.
• Experience with standard machine learning frameworks and tools (NumPy, Scikit-learn, Pandas, Pytorch, TensorFlow, etc.) and machine learning cloud infrastructure and accelerators (AWS, Google Cloud, GPUs and TPUs).
• Strong technical communication skills and the ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience with developing robust software with excellent coding hygiene and modular design.
• The position involves working with problems with no off-the-shelf solutions and requires innovation on-the-fly. Typically a Ph.D. in machine learning or a related area with good publication history would be a good fit for this position. We would also love to hear from people with similar skill sets acquired through other career paths.

We encourage applications from candidates who believe they satisfy many of the preferred qualifications, even if they do not satisfy all.

The salary range for our Tier 1 locations of San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles & New York is $160,000 – $210,000. All offers include equity compensation in the form of employee stock options.

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Be Your Best At Snorkel
 
Snorkel AI is on a mission to make machine learning practical for everyone, and it starts with building a team that welcomes, represents and gives opportunity to all. We work at the frontier of AI and software engineering, and believe that underrepresented communities need to play a part in shaping the future of these fields. At Snorkel AI, we actively work to create an environment that values end-to-end ownership, diverse forms of impact, and opportunities for personal growth.
 
Snorkelers are supported by an amazing team and an amazing set of benefits. We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans for Snorkelers and their families, plus a yearly wellness stipend. Our 401k program lets Snorkelers plan for their future and our parental leave program lets new parents take up to 20 weeks of paid time off. Learn more about these benefits and more — like our workstation setup allowance — on our Careers page.
 
Snorkel AI is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. Snorkel AI embraces diversity and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment. Snorkel AI prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, performance, merit, and business need.
 
We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.