AI Research Manager/Scientist, Model Alignment

AI Research Manager/Scientist, Model Alignment Autodesk | Full-time | Portland, OR | Negotiable Salary | Advanced (5–10 years experience) Position Overview As an AI Scientist Manager at Autodesk Research, you will lead post‑training and model alignment efforts, managing a team of AI scientists while contributing hands‑on research. The role merges advanced AI research, people leadership, and model readiness, ensuring foundation models transform into reliable, aligned, production‑ready systems. The research lab collaborates with top academic and industry labs, targeting publications in CVPR, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, SIGGRAPH, and other conferences. The team is global, spanning London, San Francisco, Toronto, and remote locations. Key Responsibilities Technical Leadership & Hands‑On Research Lead and contribute directly to post‑training pipelines, including: Instruction tuning and multi‑task fine‑tuning Preference optimization (RLHF, RLAIF, DPO, PPO, and related methods) Domain‑specific post‑training for AECO, Manufacturing, and Media & Entertainment industries Design and run experiments shaping model behavior, robustness, and reliability Decide which problems are best addressed through post‑training vs pre‑training vs product‑level mitigation Partner with infrastructure teams to ensure efficient, reproducible, and scalable post‑training workflows Evaluation, Alignment & Model Quality Design and maintain evaluation frameworks measuring: Long‑horizon reasoning and planning Tool use and agentic behavior Safety, robustness, and alignment Regression and behavioral drift across releases Lead human‑in‑the‑loop evaluation, ensuring annotation quality, consistency, and bias awareness Provide clear go / no‑go recommendations for model releases, articulating known risks and trade‑offs People Management & Team Development Manage, mentor, and grow a team of AI scientists in post‑training and alignment Set clear technical direction while empowering researchers to own end‑to‑end projects Hire and develop scientists strong in ML, RL, evaluation, and human‑centered AI Foster a culture of rigorous experimentation, reproducibility, scientific integrity, thoughtful risk‑taking, and humility about model behavior Provide regular feedback, career coaching, and performance management Cross‑Functional & Organizational Leadership Act as a key interface between pre‑training research, infrastructure and compute teams, model delivery, and safety, policy, and legal stakeholders Translate complex research trade‑offs into clear, decision‑ready guidance for leadership Influence the broader AI roadmap by identifying post‑training opportunities that unlock product impact Qualifications Minimum Qualifications PhD or equivalent industry experience in Machine Learning, AI, or related field Proven experience as a people manager of technical research or ML teams Strong hands‑on expertise in large language models, foundation models, fine‑tuning and post‑training methods (RLHF, DPO, instruction tuning) Expertise in experimental design and evaluation Ability to move fluidly between research depth and organizational leadership Strong communication skills, explaining complex trade‑offs to technical and non‑technical audiences Preferred Qualifications Experience operating in an AI research lab or frontier model organization Background in human‑in‑the‑loop systems, preference learning, or alignment research Experience shipping or supporting production AI systems Familiarity with large‑scale training infrastructure and compute cost trade‑offs Experience in Architecture, Civil or Mechanical Engineering, Construction, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment or other Autodesk domains What Success Looks Like Post‑trained models demonstrate measurable improvements in reliability, alignment, and usefulness Evaluation metrics are trusted and adopted across teams The team consistently delivers high‑quality research and practical impact Leadership relies on your judgment for model readiness and risk assessment Team members grow into strong, independent researchers and leaders Benefits Health and financial benefits, time away, and everyday wellness support. Learn more about our benefits in the U.S. by visiting Salary Transparency For U.S.–based roles, starting base salary ranges from $192,600 to $344,850, with offers based on experience and location. Compensation may also include annual cash bonuses, commissions, stock grants, and comprehensive benefits. Equal Employment Opportunity Autodesk is an equal‑opportunity employer, considering all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. We also consider all qualified applicants regardless of criminal history, consistent with applicable law. #J-18808-Ljbffr SupportFinity™