Chercheur Appliqué, ML | Senior Applied Scientist, ML

Sama; Montreal (administrative region); On-site; CAD 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading data annotation technology company seeks an Applied ML Scientist to advance its platform. The role involves developing and productizing solutions for analyzing complex data. Candidates should have a postgraduate degree in relevant fields and over five years experience in machine learning. Strong strategic thinking, communication skills, and experience with deep learning frameworks like TensorFlow or PyTorch are essential. Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits are offered, promoting a diverse workplace culture.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

Long-term disability insurance

Monthly fitness stipend

Professional development opportunities

Employer-matching Group RRSP

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in Machine Learning roles.
• Research experience in computer vision or large language models.
• Experience with data annotation and preparation.

Responsibilities

• Develop and productize technology to analyze and process data.
• Drive machine learning technology from research to product.
• Advise clients on ML best practices.

Skills

Machine learning expertise

Excellent communication skills

Deep learning frameworks

Strategic thinking

Collaboration skills

Education

Postgraduate degree in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Job description

About the Role:

The Sama R&D team is focused on delivering integrated solutions solving the most complex ML problems for our customers. We use advanced practices to build scalable, secure, and efficient solutions covering multiple aspects of ML and AI, from data ingestion to annotation and building and operating ML models.

As an Applied ML Scientist, you will work with our team of talented Researchers, Engineers, and over 3,000 of our Annotation Associates in East Africa to advance the Sama annotation platform, empowering our customers and Annotators to rapidly and accurately identify and extract features in images, videos, and Lidar systems. With a commitment to your customer and driven by a mission to expand opportunities for low‑income people, you will use your outstanding research and development skills to deliver compelling solutions in an incremental, lean, and self‑driven environment.

Our ideal candidate has a strong expertise in machine learning in general, from prototyping to productization. As part of our AI team, you will play a key role in improving the core ML technology powering our advanced data curation and annotation platform, as well as being a key stakeholder in defining the company's ML strategy.

Responsibilities:

• You will be responsible for developing and productizing our technology to analyze, characterize and process images, videos, textual information and Lidar point clouds.
• You will drive forward our machine learning technology offering, from research to productization.
• Advise clients on the best practices to train and evaluate their models in order to achieve the best performance and drive value for their companies.
• Define and articulate the vision for ML initiatives aligned with organization goals, which would help define a roadmap in conjunction with product and engineering teams.
• Postgraduate degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
• Research experience in machine learning, computer vision, or large language models.
• Experience with data annotation and preparation.
• Experience with deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or PyTorch.
• 5 years of experience in specific Machine Learning related roles.
• Demonstrates excellent communication skills, with the ability to effectively explain AI concepts in a way that allows stakeholders (internal and external) to understand the value of machine learning and generate actionable insights.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills; able to align diverse stakeholders around a shared vision.
• Proven strategic thinking ability, with experience developing and implementing multi‑phase plans.
• Ability to balance day‑to‑day technical work with big‑picture planning and long‑term sustainability.

Preferred qualifications

• Contribution to research communities and/or efforts, including publishing papers at conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, ICLR, etc.
• Familiarity with ML Ops and software engineering, in general.
• Comfortable working with a distributed team.
• Comfortable mentoring junior members of the team.

About Sama

Sama provides high‑quality training data that powers AI technology for Fortune 2000 companies such as Google, Walmart, Ford, Microsoft, and Marriott. We’re experts in data annotation, supporting text, 2D, 3D image, video, and sensor data for machine learning algorithms and generative AI models. Sama offers the highest quality SLAs in the industry, along with cutting‑edge ML‑assisted annotation tools, QA processes, and security and compliance standards.

Founded in 2008 on the belief that “talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not”, Sama is driven by the mission to expand opportunities for those who are underprivileged. As a certified B‑Corp, Sama has provided worker training programs to increase economic opportunity for more than 15,000 people from underserved communities. By connecting our customers with amazing talent in East Africa, we’ve impacted more than 69,000 workers and their dependents.

Today, our vision is to provide data scientists, ML engineers, and data operations teams with an indispensable, integrated platform for AI data preparation, labeling, and collection.

Sama is quite unique. We are a technology company with a social mission. People that thrive in a high‑growth environment, love working on the bleeding edge of technology, and really care about having a positive impact on the world are a great fit for the Sama culture. Our core values are One Team, One Goal - Deliver. Period. - Trust & Transparency - Customer First - Humanity.

Sama offers competitive compensation commensurate with experience and a full benefits package, including: medical, dental, and vision insurance, long‑term disability insurance, life, and AD&D insurance, employer‑matching Group RRSP, generous holiday and vacation policies, a monthly fitness stipend, monthly cell phone reimbursement and professional development opportunities. Our Talent Acquisition team would be happy to discuss our benefits packages with you in more detail during the interview process.

At Sama, we pride ourselves in being a diverse and equal opportunity employer.