Manager, Research Science (Foundational Research, Machine Learning)

Are you a curious and open-minded individual with an interest in leading teams conducting state-of-the-art foundational machine learning research? Thomson Reuters Labs is seeking Research Scientist Managers with a passion for leading teams and solving challenging machine learning problems in a data-rich, complex academic environment driven by real-world problems.  

Foundational Research is the dedicated core Machine Learning research division of Thomson Reuters. We are focused on research and development, with a particular focus on advanced algorithms and training techniques for Large Language Models (LLMs). We are building a strong foundation of research capabilities across different areas and are looking for managers who can inspire and guide their teams, are willing to roll up their sleeves and participate in designing, coding, conducting experiments, and translating findings into concrete deliverables. Our focus areas are: 

• LLM Training (Continued Pretraining, Instruction Tuning, Reinforcement Learning Alignment, Distributed Training, Efficient ML techniques) 

• Post-training techniques for planning & reasoning (e.g. LLMs & Knowledge Graphs, Advanced Prompting, CoT pipelines, RAG, Tool use, etc.)  

• Data-centric Machine Learning (Synthetic Data, Curriculum Learning, learned data-mixtures) 

• Evaluation (Benchmarks, Human-in-the-loop, red teaming/Adversarial Testing, Hallucination detection, ...) 

We work collaboratively both with TR Labs (TR’s applied research division), academic partners at world-leading research institutions and subject matter experts with decades of experience. We experiment, prototype, test, and deliver ideas in the pursuit of smarter and more valuable models trained on an unprecedented wealth of data and powered by state-of-the-art technical infrastructure. Through our unique institutional experience, we have access to an unprecedented number of subject matter experts involved in data collection, testing and evaluation of trained models. 

As a Research Scientist Manager, you will play a key part in leading a diverse global team of experts. We hire world-leading specialists in ML/NLP/GenAI, as well as Engineering, to drive the company’s leading internal AI model development. You will have the opportunity to publish your research findings as well as contribute to our proprietary AI model research & development. Thomson Reuters Labs is known for consistently delivering successful data-driven Artificial Intelligence solutions in pursuit of academic excellence and support of high-growth products that serve Thomson Reuters customers in new and exciting ways.  
 

About the Role

In this opportunity, as Research Scientist Manager you will:  

Lead: You will be involved in strategic planning, hiring and the management in foundational research. This gives you the opportunity to master your management skills, mentor, lead and help direct reports grow and contribute to the wider group. 

Innovate: You will innovate and create new state-of-the-art ML/NLP/IR/GenAI approaches at the cutting edge of AI research. You will contribute ideas and work on solving real-world challenges using a wealth of data. 

Experiment and Develop: You are involved in the entire research & model development lifecycle, brainstorming, coding, testing, and delivering high-quality reports at leading international academic conferences. 

Collaborate: Working on a collaborative global team of research engineers both within Thomson Reuters and our academic patterns at world-leading universities. 

Communicate: Actively engage in sharing our technical findings with the wider community through contributions to seminars, lectures, conferences and/or the sharing of publications and/or technical assets (data & models).  


About You
  
You're a fit for the role if your background includes: 

Required Qualifications:   

• PhD in a relevant discipline. 

• Strong publication record in top-tier conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, ICLR). 

• Familiarity with one or more deep learning frameworks (e.g. pytorch, jax, tensorflow, …) 

• Experience in ML Research beyond completing a PhD (e.g. supervision, industry experience, leading academic initiatives, …). 

• Excellent communication skills to report and present research findings and developments clearly, both orally and in writing. 

• Curious and innovative disposition capable of devising novel, well-founded algorithmic solutions to relevant problems. 

• Good social skills and ability to motivate, inspire and mentor team members. 

• Comfortable in working in fast-paced, agile environments, managing uncertainty and ambiguity. 

 
Preferred Qualifications:  

• High-impact publications in top-tier conferences or other influence in the research community. 

• 5+ years of hands-on experience leading teams building advanced ML / NLP / IR systems in academia (e.g. through student supervision) or for commercial applications. 

• Extensive experience with deep learning and large-scale model training. 

• Experience working on at least one relevant state-of-the-art research topic (see our focus areas) in large language models (LLMs). 

• Strong software and/or infrastructure engineering skills and ensuring well-managed software delivery, as evidenced by code contributions to popular open-source libraries or writing production code. 

• Experience training large-scale models over distributed nodes with cloud tools such as Amazon AWS, MS Azure, or Google Cloud. 

 
Other key points:

Plenty of data, compute, and high-impact problems: Our scientists and engineers get to explore large datasets and discover new capabilities and insights. Thomson Reuters is best known for the globally respected Reuters News agency, but our company is also the leading source of information for legal, corporate, and tax & accounting professionals. We have over 60,000 TBs worth of legal, regulatory, news, and tax data. We also provide access to all major cloud computing platforms to our researchers and engineers.  



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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:

• Hybrid Work Model: We’ve adopted a flexible hybrid working environment (2-3 days a week in the office depending on the role) for our office-based roles while delivering a seamless experience that is digitally and physically connected

• 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.

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