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Deep Research Agent Tech Lead

San Francisco, CA; New York, NY

Scale AI is seeking a highly technical and strategic Staff / Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer to act as the Tech Lead (TL) for our next generation of deep research agents for the Enterprise. This high-impact role will drive the technical direction and oversight for Deep Research Agent Development, translating cutting-edge research in Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), and Agentic Frameworks into robust, scalable, and high-impact production systems that enhance enterprise operations, analytics, and core efficiency.

The ideal candidate thrives in a fast-paced environment, has a passion for both deep technical work and mentoring, and is capable of setting a long-term technical strategy for a critical domain while maintaining a strong, hands-on delivery focus.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Vision

  • Set the Technical Roadmap: Define and own the technical strategy, architecture, and roadmap for Deep Research Agents for the Enterprise, ensuring alignment with Scale AI’s overall AI strategy and business goals.
  • Drive Breakthrough Research to Production: Lead the end-to-end development, from initial research to production deployment, to landing on customer impact, with a focus on integrating diverse data modalities.
  • Core Agent Capabilities Development:
    • Advanced Knowledge Retrieval: Architect and implement state-of-the-art retrieval systems to ensure the agents provide accurate and comprehensive answers from public and proprietary data sources from enterprises.
    • Data analysis: Design and champion the development of data analysis agents that accurately translate complex natural language queries into executable SQL/code against diverse enterprise data schemas.
    • Multimodal Intelligence: Lead the integration of Multimodal AI capabilities to process and extract structured information from visual documents, tables, and forms, enriching the agent's knowledge base.
  • Architecture & Design: Design and champion highly scalable, reliable, and low-latency infrastructure and frameworks for building, orchestrating, and evaluating multi-agent systems at enterprise scale.
  • Technical Excellence: Serve as the technical authority for the team, leading design reviews, defining ML engineering best practices, and ensuring code quality, security, and operational excellence for all agent systems.

Team Leadership & Mentorship

  • Lead and Mentor: Technically lead and mentor a team of Machine Learning Engineers and Research Scientists, fostering a culture of innovation, rigorous engineering, rapid iteration, and technical depth.
  • Recruiting & Growth: Partner with management to hire, onboard, and grow top-tier talent, helping to shape the long-term structure and capabilities of the team.
  • Cross-Functional Influence: Collaborate effectively with Product Managers, Data Scientists, and other engineering/science teams to translate ambiguous, high-level business problems into concrete, executable technical specifications and impactful agent solutions.

Basic Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 8+ years of experience in software development, with at least 6 years focused on Machine Learning, Deep Learning, or Applied Research in a production environment.
  • 2+ years of experience in a formal or informal Technical Leadership role (Team Lead, Tech Lead) with a focus on setting technical direction for a domain.
  • Deep expertise in Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs).
  • Demonstrated experience designing, building, and deploying AI Agents or complex Agentic systems in production at scale.
  • Experience with large-scale distributed systems and real-time data processing.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Advanced degree (Master's or Ph.D.) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related quantitative field.
  • Demonstrated experience designing and deploying production-grade Text-to-SQL systems, including handling complex schema linking and query optimization.
  • Practical experience with Multimodal AI, specifically integrating OCR and vision-language models for document intelligence and structured data extraction from images/forms.
  • Proven experience in one or more relevant deep research areas: Reinforcement Learning (RL), Reasoning and Planning, Agentic Systems.
  • Experience with vector databases and advanced retrieval techniques.
  • A track record of publishing research papers in top-tier ML/AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, KDD).
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical vision to executive stakeholders and technical peers.
  • Experience driving cross-team technical initiatives that have delivered significant business impact.

Compensation packages at Scale for eligible roles include base salary, equity, and benefits. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position, determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, interview performance, and relevant education or training. Scale employees in eligible roles are also granted equity based compensation, subject to Board of Director approval. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process, and confirm whether the hired role will be eligible for equity grant. You’ll also receive benefits including, but not limited to: Comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, a learning and development stipend, and generous PTO. Additionally, this role may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend.

Please reference the job posting's subtitle for where this position will be located. For pay transparency purposes, the base salary range for this full-time position in the locations of San Francisco, New York, Seattle is:

$252,000 - $315,000 USD

PLEASE NOTE: Our policy requires a 90-day waiting period before reconsidering candidates for the same role. This allows us to ensure a fair and thorough evaluation of all applicants.

About Us:

At Scale, our mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions. Our products provide the high-quality data and full-stack technologies that power the world's leading models, and help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that deliver real impact. We work closely with industry leaders like Meta, Cisco, DLA Piper, Mayo Clinic, Time Inc., the Government of Qatar, and U.S. government agencies including the Army and Air Force. We are expanding our team to accelerate the development of AI applications.

We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status. 

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application or recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at accommodations@scale.com. Please see the United States Department of Labor's Know Your Rights poster for additional information.

We comply with the United States Department of Labor's Pay Transparency provision. 

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