Applied Researcher 5 (AI Foundations, LLM Core and Agentic AI)

Discover Financial
San Jose, San Francisco, Virginia, Cambridge, New York
Workplace: OnsiteFull timeUSD 286,400 - 326,800 annuallyFunction: Research & Scientific (R&D)Education: phdSkills: ["Interpersonal skills","Translating complexity into business goals","Leadership","Challenging conventional thinking","Owning and pursuing a research agenda"]

Partner with data scientists, software and ML engineers, and product managers to deliver AI-powered banking experiences. Conduct high-impact applied research to translate state-of-the-art breakthroughs into production, building AI foundation models across design, training, evaluation, validation, and implementation. Use tools and platforms such as PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, and Lightning to uncover insights in large numeric and textual datasets, leading cross-functional research threads from prototype to deployment.

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Discover Financial
Discover Financial
14 hours ago

Applied Researcher 5 (AI Foundations, LLM Core and Agentic AI)

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Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 14 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Partner with data scientists, software and ML engineers, and product managers to deliver AI-powered banking experiences. Conduct high-impact applied research to translate state-of-the-art breakthroughs into production, building AI foundation models across design, training, evaluation, validation, and implementation. Use tools and platforms such as PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, and Lightning to uncover insights in large numeric and textual datasets, leading cross-functional research threads from prototype to deployment.
Location: San Jose, San Francisco, Virginia, Cambridge, New York
Workplace: Onsite
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Research & Scientific (R&D)

Key Responsibilities

  • •Partner cross-functionally with data scientists, software engineers, ML engineers, and product managers to deliver AI-powered customer-facing products.
  • •Leverage technologies such as PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, and Lightning to analyze large-scale numeric and textual datasets.
  • •Build AI foundation models across development phases: design, training, evaluation, validation, and implementation.
  • •Engage in applied research to advance state-of-the-art AI into next-generation customer experiences.
  • •Lead cross-functional research threads bridging prototype model development and deployment with ML engineering partners to drive production impact.

Pay and Benefits

Salary: USD 286,400 - 326,800 annually

Key Requirements

  • •PhD (or in process) in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields, with specified experience exceptions or an M.S. plus applied research experience.
  • •Hands-on experience developing AI foundation models and solutions using open-source tools and cloud computing platforms.
  • •Deep understanding of AI methodologies and experience building large deep learning models (e.g., language, images, events, or graphs) with expertise in areas like training optimization, self-supervised learning, robustness, explainability, and RLHF.
  • •A proven track record delivering models at scale across training data and inference volumes, with experience delivering library/platform/solution-level code into existing products.
  • •Ability to own and pursue a research agenda by choosing impactful problems and running long-running projects independently.
Education:PhD / Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics (or related fields)
Skills:Interpersonal skillsTranslating complexity into business goalsLeadershipChallenging conventional thinkingOwning and pursuing a research agenda
Tech Stack:PyTorchAWS UltraclustersHuggingfaceLightningOpen-sourceCloud computingLLMSelf-supervised learningRobustnessExplainabilityRLHFTokenizationModel training optimizationQuantizationModel sparsificationTraining parallelismGradient checkpointingModel compressionTransfer learningCompiler design

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