Director, Research Engineering - CoCounsel For Tax

Thomas Reuters; Ontario; On-site; CAD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in applied AI research is seeking a Director of Research Engineering to lead a team in developing innovative AI solutions for tax professionals. The role involves managing projects, collaborating with various stakeholders, and fostering a culture of innovation. The ideal candidate will have extensive software development experience, particularly in machine learning, and a strong background in team leadership.

Qualifications

• 10+ years software development experience, with 3+ years in Machine Learning.
• 5+ years of management experience in agile environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of 15+ research engineers, setting expectations and coaching.
• Drive end-to-end model development lifecycle with cross-functional teams.

Skills

Machine Learning

Python

Natural Language Processing

Agile Methodologies

Team Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology

Master's or PhD in relevant specialization

Tools

AWS

Azure

Numpy

Pandas

spaCy

Job description

Director, Research Engineering – CoCounsel For Tax

Are you excited about working at the forefront of applied AI research in an industry setting? Thomson Reuters Labs in North America is seeking a seasoned engineering Director to lead a team of high performing research engineers and to guide delivery of cutting-edge AI solutions from concept to production.

What does Thomson Reuters Labs do? We experiment, we build, we deliver. We support the organization and our customers through applied research in informational retrieval, natural language processing and machine learning. We work closely with product and domain experts to identify compelling solutions at the intersection of user need and technical feasibility. Our team is responsible for designing the next generation of tax, accounting and audit compliance software for Tax Professionals and Corporates in the US, and across the global markets. We own AI innovation for Thomson Reuters’ core tax products, including Cloud Audit Suite, SurePrep, Materia and ONESOURCE.

The Labs Tax & Corporates team is seeking an experienced software leader and manager to direct research engineering work in CoCounsel for Tax, Accounting and Audit which is formed around the recent acquisition of the startup Materia. Cocounsel for Tax provides LLM and agent driven experiences to automate workflow steps in tax preparation, tax research, advisory and audit. The successful candidate will work with the team to further push the envelope of agentic AI as well as information retrieval & RAG systems.

About the Role :

In this opportunity as an Director, Research Engineering you will :

Lead :

• You will lead and structure a high performing team of 15+ research engineers, setting clear expectations, modeling expected behaviors and actively coaching.
• You will be a proactive communicator who is excited to share their work and even more excited to highlight the accomplishments of their team.
• You will work directly with customers as well as with TR product and technology leaders to shape the future of CoCounsel for Tax, Accounting and Audit.

Deliver :

• With a sense of urgency and the desire to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, you will enable your team to solve complex business problems and build solutions with clearly defined outcomes.
• You will drive the end-to-end model development lifecycle partnering effectively with a collaborative cross-functional team.
• You will help our partners operate and maintain AI systems with operational excellency.
• You will be empowered to try new approaches, learn new technologies, and take informed risks with good judgement. Furthermore, you will encourage and empower your team to do the same.
• You will foster innovative ideas to solve real-world challenges. You will help lead the way in growing the understanding and adoption of AI / ML research engineering practices and frameworks across the enterprise.
• Have oversight on multiple large projects and initiatives across multiple key TR product lines in Tax & Accounting.
• Collaborate directly with leaders in product management, product marketing, engineering, editorial and UX to prioritize and deliver on key initiatives and continuously improve ways of working.
• Manage the project portfolio, the budget, the priorities, and the staff allocation.
• Confidently present our work to customers and other external venues.

About You

You are a fit for the position of Director, Research Engineering if your background includes :

Required qualifications :

• A Bachelor's degree in information technology, computer science, or the equivalent. A Master’s or PhD in a relevant specialization is preferred.
• 10+ years software development experience, of which at least 3 years working on Machine Learning related products and solutions.
• 5+ years of management experience – coaching & developing high-performing teams, with the demonstrated ability to successfully manage software engineering teams in an agile environment.
• Demonstrated experience with integrating machine learning solutions to production-grade software.
• Experience spearheading technical development in a cross-functional setting, with responsibility for ML applications; close partnership with Applied Scientists, R&D groups, or similar.
• Experience contributing to and overseeing large-scale rollouts and infrastructure initiatives.
• Experience designing and implementing solutions with large language models, including RAG frameworks and agentic frameworks (langgraph, langchain, haystack, etc).
• Expertise in several of the following areas : robust Python development, libraries such as Numpy, Scipy, Pandas, Dask, spaCy, NLTK, scikit-learn, MLOps, containerization, cloud infrastructure (AWS or Azure), advanced search and recommendation technology, orchestration of ML pipelines for real-time inference, microservices architecture, model monitoring and governance.

Preferred qualifications :

• 8+ years of management experience – coaching & developing high-performing teams.
• Previous exposure to Natural Language Processing (NLP) problems and are familiar with key tasks such as Named Entity Recognition (NER), Information Extraction, Information Retrieval, etc.

Do you want to be part of a team helping re-invent the way knowledge professionals work? How about a team that works every day to create a more transparent, just and inclusive future? At Thomson Reuters, we’ve been doing just that for almost 160 years. Our industry-leading products and services include highly specialized information-enabled software and tools for legal, tax, accounting and compliance professionals combined with the world’s most global news services – Reuters. We help these professionals do their jobs better, creating more time for them to focus on the things that matter most : advising, advocating, negotiating, governing and informing.

We are powered by the talents of 26,000 employees across more than 70 countries, where everyone has a chance to contribute and grow professionally in flexible work environments that celebrate diversity and inclusion. At a time when objectivity, accuracy, fairness and transparency are under attack, we consider it our duty to pursue them. Sound exciting? Join us and help shape the industries that move society forward.