Senior Applied Scientist, NLP/ML/GenAI

Thomas Reuters; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Senior Applied Scientist to innovate and enhance AI solutions for their products. This role involves leveraging advanced machine learning and natural language processing to drive product innovation. You will manage model development, collaborate with engineering teams, and ensure alignment with business objectives. Join a forward-thinking team that values diversity and offers a flexible work environment. This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the future of tax, accounting, and compliance software, making a real impact in the industry.

Benefits

Flexible vacation

Mental Health Days

Tuition reimbursement

Employee incentive programs

Work from anywhere for 8 weeks

Paid volunteer days

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in building IR/NLP systems for commercial applications.
• Experience in writing production code and ensuring software delivery.

Responsibilities

• Manage end-to-end model development and guide others in research.
• Communicate research findings in peer-reviewed publications.

Skills

Machine Learning

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Information Retrieval (IR)

Problem Solving

Communication Skills

Education

PhD in relevant discipline

Master's degree with comparable experience

Tools

Agile Methodologies

Model Training and Evaluation

Job description

Are you excited about working at the forefront of applied research in an industry setting? Thomson Reuters Labs in Toronto is seeking scientists with a passion for solving problems using state-of-the-art information retrieval, natural language processing and generative AI.

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 needs 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 CoCounsel for Tax, Checkpoint Edge, Cloud Audit Suite, SurePrep and ONESOURCE.

About the Role:

Senior Applied Scientists are experts in Machine Learning / NLP, 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 Senior Applied Scientist, you will:

• Own and manage end-to-end model development, guiding others in research, data engineering, and evaluation.
• Operate in an agile way, pushing for quick iterations guided by customers’ needs.
• Be accountable for all research deliverables on small to medium-sized projects.
• Communicate research in peer-reviewed publications and develop patentable ideas ensuring competitiveness of the company’s products and services.
• Work with stakeholders to define scope, determine feasibility, and translate business/customer objectives into technical requirements.
• Partner effectively with Engineering to ensure well-managed software delivery and co-design ML Ops processes related to model monitoring, evaluation, and retraining.

About You:

You’re a fit for the role of Senior Applied Scientist if your background includes:

• PhD in a relevant discipline or Master’s plus a comparable level of experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience building IR / NLP systems for commercial applications.
• Experience writing production code and ensuring well-managed software delivery.
• Demonstrable experience translating complex problems into successful AI applications.
• Outstanding communication, problem-solving, and analysis skills.
• Collaborating with Product, Engineering and Business Stakeholders in an agile manner to demonstrate value and iterate with customer feedback.
• (Preferred) Publications at relevant venues such as ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, NeurIPS, ICLR, SIGIR, or KDD.

What’s in it For You?

• Industry-Leading 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.
• 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, and hybrid model, 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 skills-first approach ensures you have the tools and knowledge to grow, lead, and thrive in an AI-enabled future.
• Culture: Globally recognized and award-winning reputation for inclusion, innovation, and customer-focus. Our eleven business resource groups nurture our culture of belonging across the diverse backgrounds and experiences represented across our global footprint.
• Hybrid Work Model: We’ve adopted a flexible hybrid working environment (2-3 days a week in the office depending on the role) for our office-based roles while delivering a seamless experience that is digitally and physically connected.
• 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.

DISCLAIMER

The above information in this description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job.

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 25,000 employees across more than 75 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.

Accessibility

As a global business, we rely on diversity of culture and thought to deliver on our 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/Affirmative Action 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.