Applied Researcher I (AI Foundations, LLM Customization, Finetuning, Reinforcement Learning)

Discover Financial
San Jose, Cambridge, Virginia, New York
Workplace: OnsiteFull timeUSD 238,600 - 272,300 annuallyFunction: Research & Scientific (R&D)Experience: 2+ yearsEducation: phdSkills: ["Interpersonal skills","Translating complexity","Innovative thinking","Creative problem-solving","Engineering mindset"]

Build trustworthy AI foundation models for customer-facing banking experiences by partnering with data scientists, ML engineers, software engineers, and product managers. Apply state-of-the-art methods across the full lifecycle—design, training, evaluation, validation, and implementation—while leveraging technologies like PyTorch, AWS, Hugging Face, Lightning, and vector databases. Translate complex research into business impact and help push emerging AI into production-ready customer experiences.

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Discover Financial
Discover Financial
23 minutes ago

Applied Researcher I (AI Foundations, LLM Customization, Finetuning, Reinforcement Learning)

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Last checked: 23 minutes agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Build trustworthy AI foundation models for customer-facing banking experiences by partnering with data scientists, ML engineers, software engineers, and product managers. Apply state-of-the-art methods across the full lifecycle—design, training, evaluation, validation, and implementation—while leveraging technologies like PyTorch, AWS, Hugging Face, Lightning, and vector databases. Translate complex research into business impact and help push emerging AI into production-ready customer experiences.
Location: San Jose, Cambridge, Virginia, New York
Workplace: Onsite
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Research & Scientific (R&D)

Key Responsibilities

  • •Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver AI-powered products that change how customers interact with their money.
  • •Leverage a broad technology stack to extract insights from large volumes of numeric and textual data.
  • •Build AI foundation models across design, training, evaluation, validation, and implementation.
  • •Engage in high-impact applied research to advance customer experiences.
  • •Translate research complexity into tangible business goals for stakeholders.

Pay and Benefits

Salary: USD 238,600 - 272,300 annually

Key Requirements

  • •Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining, a PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields (or will obtain it on or before the scheduled start date).
  • •Or, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields plus 2 years of experience in applied research.
  • •Hands-on experience developing AI foundation models and solutions using open-source tools and cloud computing platforms.
  • •Experience building large deep learning models and expertise in areas such as training optimization, self-supervised learning, robustness, explainability, or RLHF.
  • •Ability to own and pursue a research agenda, choosing impactful research problems and running long-running projects.
Experience:2+ years
Education:PhD / Doctorate
Skills:Interpersonal skillsTranslating complexityInnovative thinkingCreative problem-solvingEngineering mindset
Tech Stack:PyTorchAWSHuggingfaceLightningVectorDBsOpen-sourceCloud computing

Company Brief

Discover Financial
Provides consumer banking products, credit cards, personal loans, and payment services through the Discover brand. It operates a major U.S. financial network and serves individuals and merchants with lending and digital payment solutions.
Industry: Retail Banking
Company Size: Enterprise (1,001+ employees)
Revenue: USD 10M to 25M
Growth: Public Company
Valuation: Public Company (Market Cap in USD)
Funding: IPO / Publicly Listed
Headquarters: Riverwoods, United States
Founded: 1985
WebsiteLinkedIn