Lead Applied Scientist

Refinitiv; Toronto; On-site; CAD 140,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

CAD salary range

Annual bonus

Comprehensive benefits

Flexible work policy

Job summary

Thomson Reuters Labs in Canada seeks a Lead Applied Scientist skilled in NLP, IR, and GenAI to design and deliver AI solutions for LegalTech products. You will lead an applied research team through ideation, PoC, production scaling, and iteration, partnering with Product, Engineering, and SMEs to create value.

The role requires a PhD or Master’s with 7+ years of commercial NLP/IR experience, production code, and strong communication.

Qualifications

• PhD in a relevant discipline or master’s plus a comparable level of experience.
• 7+ years of hands‑on experience building NLP / IR systems for commercial applications.
• Experience writing production code and ensuring well‑managed software delivery.
• Demonstrable experience translating complex problems into successful AI applications.
• Professional experience scaling yourself and leading through others, in an applied research setting.
• Outstanding communication, problem‑solving, and analysis skills.
• Staying up to date with the latest research and emerging tech for generative AI for NLP and IR.
• Experience collaborating with Product, Engineering and other business stakeholders in an agile manner to demonstrate value and iterate with customer feedback.

Responsibilities

• Lead an applied research team throughout the full product development life cycle from ideation to production scaling.
• Be fully accountable for all research deliverables in your projects.
• Lead and drive stakeholder engagement with Product, Engineering, SMEs, Design.
• Develop in-depth knowledge of customer problems and data.
• Maintain scientific and technical expertise in one or more relevant areas.

Skills

NLP/IR/GenAI

Leadership

Production code

Communication

Agile

Education

PhD or MSc+Experience

Tools

Python

Git

AWS

Azure

Job description

Lead Applied Scientist, NLP/IR/GenAI

Are you excited about working at the forefront of applied research in an industry setting?Thomson Reuters Labsin Canada is seeking scientists with a passion for solving problems using state-of-the‑art natural language processing, information retrieval, and generative AI. What doesThomson Reuters Labsdo? We experiment, we build, we deliver. We support the organization and our customers through applied research in natural language processing and informational retrieval. We innovate collaboratively with product and domain experts to identify compelling solutions at the intersection of user needs and technical feasibility. Our team in Labs Legal Tech is designing the next generation of Legal Technology globally. We drive AI innovation for Thomson Reuters’ LegalTech Products and features, includingCoCounsel Legal, Practical Law, HighQ, Legal Tracker, Due Diligence, Document Intelligence, and others.

About the Role

Lead Applied Scientists are experts in NLP / IR / ML / GenAI, responsible for the design and delivery of AI solutions that enhance Thomson Reuters' products. They leverage information retrieval techniques, prompting workflows, model training and evaluation design to build and optimize solutions. Their work ensures AI technologies are effectively aligned with business objectives, driving product innovation and value. As a Lead Applied Scientist, you will work with a cross functional team at the intersection of product, science, and engineering to:

• Lead an applied research team throughout the full product development life cycle from ideation and PoC through to production scaling and feedback driven iteration.
• Be fully accountable for all research deliverables in your projects
• Lead and drive stakeholder engagement with other functions (Product, Engineering, SMEs, Design)
• Develop in-depth knowledge of customer problems and data
• Maintain scientific and technical expertise in one or more relevant areas as demonstrated through product deliverables, published research, and intellectual property
• Identify state of the art technology relevant to TR products and leverage them to create value for TR customers
• Provide input to the business and Labs leadership on long‑term AI strategy
• Mentor and coach scientists and engineers on best practices and fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration and continuous learning.

About You

• PhD in a relevant discipline or master’s plus a comparable level of experience
• 7+ years of hands‑on experience building NLP / IR systems for commercial applications
• Experience writing production code and ensuring well‑managed software delivery
• Demonstrable experience translating complex problems into successful AI applications
• Professional experience scaling yourself and leading through others, in an applied research setting
• Outstanding communication, problem‑solving, and analysis skills
• Staying up to date with the latest research and emerging tech for generative AI for NLP and IR
• Experience collaborating with Product, Engineering and other business stakeholders in an agile manner to demonstrate value and iterate with customer feedback

Technical qualifications

• Solid understanding of classic ML techniques used for NLP problems
• Solid understanding of DL approaches used for NLP tasks such as transformer‑based models
• Working understanding of inner workings of large language models
• Experience working on text heavy NLP projects
• Practical experience in curating and optimizing data sets for evaluation of ML and LLM‑based solutions including AutoEval methods Practical experience using generative AI technologies (prompt engineering, in‑context learning, chain‑of‑thoughts, prompt optimization, auto‑evaluation, function calling, controlled generation, etc.)
• Practical experience using RAG frameworks, pre‑training/fine‑tuning language models, and data curation/generation for training/fine‑tuning language models
• Practical experience using agentic frameworks for building applications (PydanticAI, LangGraph, AutoGen, Semantic Kernel, etc.)
• Proficiency in Python, Git, AWS, Azure for remote model development and deployment
• Experience building lightweight UIs, iterating on greenfield concepts, applying agile development practices and rapid prototyping.

Preferred qualifications

• Prior experience of working on legal AI systems and/or solutions interacting with long documents (e.g., for contract analysis, legal research, or drafting)
• Experience building applications for the legal domain, such as document review or document drafting
• Knowledge in legal (transactional or litigation), compliance or regulatory domains, law degree (J.D.), paralegal experience, etc.
• Publications at relevant venues such as ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, NeurIPS, ICLR, SIGIR, ICML, KDD or similar conferences and venues.
• Knowledge of MLOps and the end-to-end lifecycle of software applications involving AI models

What’s in it For You?

Flexibility & Work-Life Balance: Flex My Way is a set of supportive workplace policies designed to help manage personal and professional responsibilities, whether caring for family, giving back to the community, or finding time to refresh and reset. This builds upon our flexible work arrangements, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year, empowering employees to achieve a better work‑life balance. Career Development and Growth: By fostering a culture of continuous learning and skill development, we prepare our talent to tackle tomorrow’s challenges and deliver real‑world solutions. Our Grow My Way programming and skills‑first approach ensures you have the tools and knowledge to grow, lead, and thrive in an AI‑enabled future. Industry Competitive Benefits: We offer comprehensive benefit plans to include flexible vacation, two company‑wide Mental Health Days off, access to the Headspace app, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, employee incentive programs, and resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing. Culture: Globally recognized, award‑winning reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work‑life balance, and more. We live by our values: Obsess over our Customers, Compete to Win, Challenge (Y)our Thinking, Act Fast / Learn Fast, and Stronger Together. Social Impact: Make an impact in your community with our Social Impact Institute. We offer employees two paid volunteer days off annually and opportunities to get involved with pro‑bono consulting projects and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives. Making a Real-World Impact:We are one of the few companies globally that helps its customers pursue justice, truth, and transparency. Together, with the professionals and institutions we serve, we help uphold the rule of law, turn the wheels of commerce, catch bad actors, report the facts, and provide trusted, unbiased information to people all over the world.

Thomson Reuters complies with local laws that require upfront disclosure of the expected pay range for a position. The base compensation range varies across locations. For Ontario, Canada, the base compensation range for this role is $140,000 CAD - $175,000 CAD. Base pay is positioned within the range based on several factors including an individual’s knowledge, skills and experience with consideration given to internal equity. Base pay is one part of a comprehensive Total Reward program which also includes flexible and supportive benefits and other wellbeing programs. This role may also be eligible for an Annual Bonus based on a combination of enterprise and individual performance.

About Us Thomson Reuters informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. We serve professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Our products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news. 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. 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. As a global business, we rely on the unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences of all employees to deliver on our business goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer providing a drug‑free workplace. We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law. More information on requesting an accommodation here. Learn more on how to protect yourself from fraudulent job postings here. More information about Thomson Reuters can be found on thomsonreuters.com At Thomson Reuters, we’re not riding the AI wave — we’re reshaping the future of professional work across law, tax, compliance, and journalism. Here, you will collaborate with smart, ambitious people who thrive on solving complex problems, delivering market‑leading solutions, and innovating with curiosity and care.

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