Director, Research Engineering - CoCounsel For Tax

Director, Research Engineering – CoCounsel For Tax

Are you excited about working at the forefront of applied AI research in an industry setting? Thomson Reuters Labs in North America is seeking a seasoned engineering Director to lead a team of high performing research engineers and to guide delivery of cutting-edge AI solutions from concept to production.  

What does Thomson Reuters Labs do? We experiment, we build, we deliver. We support the organization and our customers through applied research in informational retrieval, natural language processing and machine learning. We work closely with product and domain experts to identify compelling solutions at the intersection of user need and technical feasibility. Our team is responsible for designing the next generation of tax, accounting and audit compliance software for Tax Professionals and Corporates in the US, and across the global markets. We own AI innovation for Thomson Reuters’ core tax products, including Cloud Audit Suite, SurePrep, Materia and ONESOURCE. 

The Labs Tax & Corporates team is seeking an experienced software leader and manager to direct research engineering work in CoCounsel for Tax, Accounting and Audit which is formed around the recent acquisition of the startup Materia. Cocounsel for Tax provides LLM and agent driven experiences to automate workflow steps in tax preparation, tax research, advisory and audit. The successful candidate will work with the team to further push the envelope of agentic AI as well as information retrieval & RAG systems.  

About the Role:

In this opportunity as an Director, Research Engineering  you will:  

Lead:  

• You will lead and structure a high performing team of 15+ research engineers, setting clear expectations, modeling expected behaviors and actively coaching. 
• You will be a proactive communicator who is excited to share their work and even more excited to highlight the accomplishments of their team. 
• You will work directly with customers as well as with TR product and technology leaders to shape the future of CoCounsel for Tax, Accounting and Audit. 

Deliver: 

• With a sense of urgency and the desire to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, you will enable your team to solve complex business problems and build solutions with clearly defined outcomes. 
• You will drive the end-to-end model development lifecycle partnering effectively with a collaborative cross-functional team. 
• You will help our partners operate and maintain AI systems with operational excellency 

Innovate: 

• You will be empowered to try new approaches, learn new technologies, and take informed risks with good judgement. Furthermore, you will encourage and empower your team to do the same. 
• You will foster innovative ideas to solve real-world challenges. You will help lead the way in growing the understanding and adoption of AI/ML research engineering practices and frameworks across the enterprise. 
• Have oversight on multiple large projects and initiatives across multiple key TR product lines in Tax & Accounting 
• Collaborate directly with leaders in product management, product marketing, engineering, editorial and UX to prioritize and deliver on key initiatives and continuously improve ways of working 
• Manage the project portfolio, the budget, the priorities, and the staff allocation 
• Confidently present our work to customers and other external venues 

About You

You are a fit for the position of Director, Research Engineering if your background includes:

Required qualifications:

• A Bachelor's degree in information technology, computer science, or the equivalent. A Master’s or PhD in a relevant specialization is preferred. 
• 10+ years software development experience, of which at least 3 years working on Machine Learning related products and solutions 
• 5+ years of management experience – coaching & developing high-performing teams, with the demonstrated ability to successfully manage software engineering teams in an agile environment 
• Demonstrated experience with integrating machine learning solutions to production-grade software 
• Experience spearheading technical development in a cross-functional setting, with responsibility for ML applications; close partnership with Applied Scientists, R&D groups, or similar. 
• Experience contributing to and overseeing large-scale rollouts and infrastructure initiatives.  
• Experience designing and implementing solutions with large language models, including RAG frameworks and agentic frameworks (langgraph, langchain, haystack, etc) 
• Expertise in several of the following areas: robust Python development, libraries such as Numpy, Scipy, Pandas, Dask, spaCy, NLTK, scikit-learn, MLOps, containerization, cloud infrastructure (AWS or Azure), advanced search and recommendation technology, orchestration of ML pipelines for real-time inference, microservices architecture, model monitoring and governance.  

Preferred qualifications:  

• 8+ years of management experience – coaching & developing high-performing teams  
• Previous exposure to Natural Language Processing (NLP) problems and are familiar with key tasks such as Named Entity Recognition (NER), Information Extraction, Information Retrieval, etc. 
• Hands-on experience in other programming and scripting languages (Java, TypeScript, JavaScript, etc.) 

#LI-JF1

What's in it For You?

You will join our inclusive culture of world-class talent, where we are committed to your personal and professional growth through:

• Wellbeing: Comprehensive benefit plans; flexible and supportive benefits for work-life balance: flexible vacation, two company-wide Mental Health Days Off; work from another location for up to a total of 8 weeks in a year, 4 of those weeks can be out of the country and the remaining in the country, Headspace app subscription; retirement, savings, tuition reimbursement, and employee incentive programs; resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.

• Culture: Globally recognized and award-winning reputation for equality, diversity and inclusion, flexibility, work-life balance, and more.

• Learning & Development: LinkedIn Learning access; internal Talent Marketplace with opportunities to work on projects cross-company; Ten Thousand Coffees Thomson Reuters café networking.

• Social Impact: Ten employee-driven Business Resource Groups; two paid volunteer days annually; Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives for local and global impact.

• Purpose Driven Work: We have a superpower that we’ve never talked about with as much pride as we should – we are one of the only companies on the planet that helps its customers pursue justice, truth and transparency. Together, with the professionals and institutions we serve, we help uphold the rule of law, turn the wheels of commerce, catch bad actors, report the facts, and provide trusted, unbiased information to people all over the world.

Do you want to be part of a team helping re-invent the way knowledge professionals work? How about a team that works every day to create a more transparent, just and inclusive future? At Thomson Reuters, we’ve been doing just that for almost 160 years. Our industry-leading products and services include highly specialized information-enabled software and tools for legal, tax, accounting and compliance professionals combined with the world’s most global news services – Reuters. We help these professionals do their jobs better, creating more time for them to focus on the things that matter most: advising, advocating, negotiating, governing and informing.

We are powered by the talents of 26,000 employees across more than 70 countries, where everyone has a chance to contribute and grow professionally in flexible work environments that celebrate diversity and inclusion. At a time when objectivity, accuracy, fairness and transparency are under attack, we consider it our duty to pursue them. Sound exciting? Join us and help shape the industries that move society forward. 

Accessibility 

As a global business, we rely on diversity of culture and thought to deliver on our goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer providing a drug-free workplace.

We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law.

Protect yourself from fraudulent job postings click here to know more.

More information about Thomson Reuters can be found on https://thomsonreuters.com.