Research Engineer, Semantic Scholar

Hybrid: Persons in these roles are expected to spend part of their time on-site in our Seattle offices and may occasionally work remotely from their home in the Greater Seattle area. On-site requirements vary based on position and team. If you have questions about Hybrid work arrangements for this role, please ask your recruiter.

Compensation Range: $118,800 - $178,200 

Who You Are:

As a Research Engineer on Semantic Scholar Research, you’ll have the opportunity to work on real-world  research problems and systems that improve scientists' productivity and discovery experience by developing intelligent research assistants and platforms like Semantic Scholar (semanticscholar.org).

We collaborate frequently with researchers on other Ai2 teams focused on natural language processing and computer vision, among others. Our main office has close ties and unique access to researchers at the University of Washington, only 1.5 miles away. 

All researchers and engineers interested in researching and applying AI to accelerate science are encouraged to apply. In  the current hiring cycle, we are especially interested in the following areas:

• Human-AI collaboration
• Model distillation and specialization
• Agentic planning, reasoning, and learning

See our publications for examples of our work.

We are considering applications on a rolling basis. The deadline for the next round of applications is January 17th, 2025.

Who We Are: 

Semantic Scholar Research at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) is an interdisciplinary research team focused on AI, HCI, ML, NLP, accessibility, and computational social science in support of our mission of accelerating science. Our research powers open platforms and tools that assist scholars in performing scientific research tasks (e.g., literature discovery and synthesis, hypothesis generation, etc.) such as the Semantic Scholar platform and intelligent research assistants.  We regularly publish in high-profile conferences and journals in NLP (e.g., ACL, EMNLP), HCI (e.g., CHI, UIST, CSCW), ML (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR), IR (e.g., SIGIR), Accessibility (ASSETS), and other areas.

Your Next Challenge:

Research engineers on our team contribute to Ai2's impact-driven mission in an exciting, fast-paced research environment. 

The essential functions include, but are not limited to the following:

• Build infrastructure that powers groundbreaking research with real-world impact on accelerating science
• Conduct ML/AI/HCI experiments for research projects
• Implement and share open-source software to improve access to our research,
• Collaborate with and learn from team members across Ai2, including scientists and engineers, 
• Mentor early-career researchers, engineers,  and interns on their projects, and
• Contribute toward scientific papers for publication in high-profile computing conferences and journals.

What You’ll Need:

• 2+ years of experience implementing machine learning or AI (including at least one year of prompt engineering and/or fine-tuning large language models), some of which ends up in production in front of users.
• Strong software engineering skills.  Experience with system building (e.g., web application frameworks) or deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Tensorflow). Contributions to open-source research libraries (e.g., spaCy, Hugging Face’s Transformers) are a plus.
• A passion for using AI to deliver high-quality products and user experiences
• BS or higher in Computer Science or a related field (MS a plus), with a specific focus on one or more of our team’s active research areas.

Physical Demands and Work Environment:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position for long periods of time. 
• The ability to communicate information and ideas so others will understand. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations. 
• The ability to observe details at close range.
• Can work under deadlines.

A Little More About Ai2:

Ai2 is a Seattle based non-profit AI research institute founded in 2014 by the late Paul Allen. Our mission is building breakthrough AI to solve the world’s biggest problems. We develop foundational AI research and innovation to deliver real-world impact through large-scale open models, data, robotics, conservation, and beyond.

In addition to Ai2’s core mission, we also aim to contribute to humanity through our treatment of each member of the Ai2 Team. Some highlights are:

• We are a learning organization – because everything Ai2 does is ground-breaking, we are learning every day. Similarly, through weekly Ai2 Academy lectures, a wide variety of world-class AI experts as guest speakers, and our commitment to your personal on-going education, Ai2 is a place where you will have opportunities to continue learning alongside your coworkers. 
• We value diversity - We seek to hire, support, and promote people from all genders, ethnicities, and all levels of experience regardless of age. We particularly encourage applications from women, non-binary individuals, people of color, members of the LGBTQA+ community, and people with disabilities of any kind. 
• We value inclusion - We understand the value that people's individual experiences and perspectives can bring to an organization, and we are building a culture in which all voices are heard, respected and considered.
• We emphasize a healthy work/life balance – we believe our team members are happiest and most productive when their work/life balance is optimized. While we value powerful research results which drive our mission forward, we also value dinner with family, weekend time, and vacation time. We offer generous paid vacation and sick leave as well as family leave.
• We are collaborative and transparent – we consider ourselves a team, all moving with a common purpose. We are quick to cheer our successes, and even quicker to share and jointly problem solve our failures.
• We are in Seattle – and our office is on the water! We have mountains, we have lakes, we have four seasons, we bike to work, we have a vibrant theater scene, and we have so much else. We even have kayaks for you to paddle right outside our front door. We welcome interest from applicants from outside of the United States.
• We are friendly– chances are you will like every one of the 200+ (and growing) people who work here. We do. 

Ai2 is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. You may view the related Know Your Rights compliance poster and the Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision by clicking on their corresponding links. 

This employer participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, this employer is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities to the full extent required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA, you are encouraged to contact us at recruiting@allenai.org. 

Benefits:

• Team members and their families are covered by medical, dental, vision, basic life insurance, basic accidental death and dismemberment insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, and an employee assistance program.
• Team members are able to enroll in our voluntary life insurance program, our voluntary accidental death and dismemberment program, our health savings account plan, our healthcare reimbursement arrangement plan, and our health care and dependent care flexible spending account plans.
• Team members are able to enroll in our company’s 401k plan.
• Team members will receive $125 per month to assist with commuting or internet expenses and will also receive $200 per month for fitness and wellbeing expenses.
• Team members will also receive up to ten sick days per year, up to seven personal days per year, up to 20 vacation days per year and twelve paid holidays throughout the calendar year.
• Team members will be able to receive annual bonuses and can participate in the long-term incentive plan.

Note: This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the team members(s) of this position. Team members will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by any person authorized to give instructions or assignments. All duties and responsibilities are essential functions and requirements and are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. To perform this job successfully, the team member(s) will possess the skills, aptitudes, and abilities to perform each duty proficiently. Some requirements may exclude individuals who pose a direct threat or significant risk to the health or safety of themselves or others. The requirements listed in this document are the minimum levels of knowledge, skills, or abilities. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an at will relationship.