Applied Researcher 4 (AI Foundations, VLM)

Discover Financial
San Jose, San Francisco, Virginia, Cambridge, New York
Workplace: OnsiteFull timeUSD 238,600 - 272,300 annuallyFunction: Research & Scientific (R&D)Experience: 2+ yearsEducation: phdSkills: ["Innovation","Creativity","Stakeholder collaboration","Technical communication","Research ownership"]

Build and evaluate AI foundation models for next-generation customer experiences, partnering with data scientists, engineers, and product managers across the full research lifecycle. Work on training, optimization, validation, and deployment of large deep learning systems, including LLM-focused methods such as instruction tuning and RLHF. Use tools like PyTorch, AWS, Hugging Face, and Lightning to translate insights into scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure.

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Discover Financial
Discover Financial
12 hours ago

Applied Researcher 4 (AI Foundations, VLM)

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Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 12 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Build and evaluate AI foundation models for next-generation customer experiences, partnering with data scientists, engineers, and product managers across the full research lifecycle. Work on training, optimization, validation, and deployment of large deep learning systems, including LLM-focused methods such as instruction tuning and RLHF. Use tools like PyTorch, AWS, Hugging Face, and Lightning to translate insights into scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure.
Location: San Jose, San Francisco, Virginia, Cambridge, New York
Workplace: Onsite
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Research & Scientific (R&D)
Seniority: Mid level

Key Responsibilities

  • •Partner cross-functionally to deliver AI-powered products that change how customers interact with their money.
  • •Leverage PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Hugging Face, Lightning, and related technologies to analyze large numeric and textual datasets.
  • •Build AI foundation models across design, training, evaluation, validation, and implementation.
  • •Engage in high-impact applied research and translate emerging AI advances into next-generation customer experiences.
  • •Prepare internal tech reports or conference submissions summarizing novel methods or findings.

Pay and Benefits

Salary: USD 238,600 - 272,300 annually

Key Requirements

  • •PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or a related field (or MS in a related field plus 2 years of applied research experience).
  • •Hands-on experience developing AI foundation models and solutions using open-source tools and cloud computing platforms.
  • •Experience building large deep learning models for language, images, events, or graphs, with expertise in one or more of training optimization, self-supervised learning, robustness, explainability, or RLHF.
  • •Experience delivering models at scale, including training data and inference volume considerations.
  • •Ability to own and pursue a research agenda by choosing impactful research problems and independently running long-running projects.
Experience:2+ yearsAIMachine learningDeep learningLLMNLPResearchOpen source
Education:PhD / Doctorate
Skills:InnovationCreativityStakeholder collaborationTechnical communicationResearch ownership
Tech Stack:PyTorchAWSHugging FaceLightningLLMNLPOpen-sourceCloud computing

Eligibility

Work Authorization:Sponsorship available.

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