Machine Learning Researcher

Intercom is the AI Customer Service company on a mission to help businesses provide incredible customer experiences. 

Our AI agent Fin, the most advanced customer service AI agent on the market, lets businesses deliver always-on, impeccable customer service and ultimately transform their customer experiences for the better. Fin can also be combined with our Helpdesk to become a complete solution called the Intercom Customer Service Suite, which provides AI enhanced support for the more complex or high touch queries that require a human agent. 

Founded in 2011 and trusted by nearly 30,000 global businesses, Intercom is setting the new standard for customer service. Driven by our core values, we push boundaries, build with speed and intensity, and consistently deliver incredible value to our customers.

About Intercom:

At Intercom, we are building the leading AI for customer service. As we continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, we are looking for a Machine Learning Researcher to join our innovative team and lead impactful research that shapes the future of AI in customer service.

What's the opportunity? 

As a Machine Learning Researcher at Intercom, you will conduct cutting-edge research and develop AI models that enhance our customer service AI. You will contribute to both product innovation and the wider AI research community.

What will I be doing? 

• Conduct advanced research in LLMs, deep learning, reinforcement learning and other AI areas relevant to customer service and communication.
• Write scientific papers and contribute to top-tier conferences and journals, enhancing Intercom's position in the AI research community.
• Identify and explore emerging research areas, developing long-term strategies to expand the impact of AI in customer service.
• Lead and contribute to the design, implementation, and evaluation of machine learning models and algorithms that improve our products.
• Collaborate with external researchers, universities, and technical institutes to explore new AI technologies.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate new AI research into the Intercom platform, impacting millions of users.
• Mentor and influence other researchers, shaping research agendas and helping drive innovation.

Potential Projects

• Replicate the work of Deepseek r1-zero to attempt to use reinforcement learning to train models for better instruction following
• Follow and build on the work of Anthropic on Scaling Monosemanticity to attempt to learn how to steer and control models
• Follow and build on the work of the Llama3 paper to investigate training new Capabilities into existing open source models
• Experiment with altering model personality in a way that could be useful in Customer Support
• Investigate fine-tuning smaller models with SFT to use for specific use cases
• Create benchmarks for agents that need to take actions reliably
• Evaluate building systems that use computer-use models to drive web browsers and integrate with legacy business systems 

What skills do I need? 

• PhD degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• At least 3 years of experience leading research agendas in academia or industry.
• A proven track record of writing scientific publications submitted to conferences, journals, or public repositories
• Expertise in key ML areas such as reinforcement learning, unsupervised learning, deep learning, and NLP.
• Proficiency in coding, with experience in Python, TensorFlow, or PyTorch for implementing machine learning models.

Bonus skills & attributes 

• Experience with the full research lifecycle: from designing experiments and prototypes to evaluating models and deploying solutions.
• Experience leading research efforts and influencing other researchers to drive innovation and collaboration.
• Strong familiarity with AI techniques such as reinforcement learning, unsupervised learning, and generative models.
• Ability to communicate complex ideas clearly, both in written publications and presentations, to a wide audience, including researchers, engineers, and product teams.
• Hands-on coding experience in machine learning, with a focus on deep learning or NLP.

Why Intercom?

• Work on high-impact projects in a rapidly growing field of AI, where your work will directly impact millions of businesses and their customers.
• Join a talented and diverse team passionate about using AI to solve real-world problems.
• Thrive in a flexible, collaborative, and innovative environment where you’ll have the autonomy to pursue new ideas and research.
• Competitive salary, equity, and benefits, along with opportunities for professional growth and development

Benefits 

We are a well-treated bunch, with awesome benefits! If there’s something important to you that’s not on this list, talk to us! 

• Competitive salary and equity in a fast-growing start-up

• We serve lunch every weekday, plus a variety of snack foods and a fully stocked kitchen

• Regular compensation reviews - we reward great work!

• Pension scheme & match up to 4%

• Peace of mind with life assurance, as well as comprehensive health and dental insurance for you and your dependents

• Flexible paid time off policy

• Paid maternity leave, as well as 6 weeks paternity leave for fathers, to let you spend valuable time with your loved ones

• If you’re cycling, we’ve got you covered on the Cycle-to-Work Scheme. With secure bike storage too 

• MacBooks are our standard, but we’re happy to get you whatever equipment helps you get your job done

 

Policies 

Intercom has a hybrid working policy. We believe that working in person helps us stay connected, collaborate easier and create a great culture while still providing flexibility to work from home. We expect employees to be in the office at least two days per week.

We have a radically open and accepting culture at Intercom. We avoid spending time on divisive subjects to foster a safe and cohesive work environment for everyone. As an organization, our policy is to not advocate on behalf of the company or our employees on any social or political topics out of our internal or external communications. We respect personal opinion and expression on these topics on personal social platforms on personal time, and do not challenge or confront anyone for their views on non-work related topics. Our goal is to focus on doing incredible work to achieve our goals and unite the company through our core values.  

Intercom values diversity and is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity. Intercom will not discriminate against an applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, age, physical or mental disability, veteran or military status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state, or local law.

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