Deep Research Agent Tech Lead

Scale AI is seeking a highly technical and strategic Staff / Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer to act as the Tech Lead for its 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 production systems that enhance enterprise operations, analytics, and core efficiency.

Responsibilities

• 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.
• 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.
• 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

Base salary range for this full‑time position in San Francisco, New York, and Seattle: $252,000 – $315,000 USD.

About Scale AI

At Scale AI we develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions. Our products provide high‑quality data and full‑stack technologies that power leading models and help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that deliver real impact. We work closely with industry leaders and are expanding our team to accelerate the development of AI applications.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

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 will provide reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected status.