Senior AI Research Scientist — NLP, IR & LLMs

Nabla; Madrid; Híbrido; EUR 55.000 - 70.000; Jornada completa

Ventajas ofrecidas por este puesto de trabajo

Flexible working environment

Volunteer time off

LinkedIn Learning

Employee-Assistance-Program (EAP)

Descripción de la vacante

NIQ is seeking a senior AI/ML leader to drive research and apply state-of-the-art techniques to large-scale problems in recommender systems, NLP, and related domains. You will oversee experiments, mentor scientists, and collaborate with engineering teams to translate research into production-ready solutions.

The role emphasizes strong analytical skills, ability to communicate findings to non-technical stakeholders, and a track record of guiding research from concept to adoption.

Formación

• Master's or PhD in Computer Science, AI, ML, Mathematics, Physics, or related quantitative field.
• 7+ years of experience in Machine Learning, Deep Learning, or AI research.
• Demonstrated expertise in training transformer-based models for IR, recommender systems, NLP, or related domains.
• Experience training custom SLMs or small reasoning models.
• Advanced experience with Python, PyTorch, Hugging Face, Pandas, Scikit-learn, and Git.
• Strong experience with Transformer architectures, embeddings, and representation learning.
• Experience with vector databases (e.g., FAISS, ChromaDB, Pinecone) and retrieval-based systems.
• Ability to understand, evaluate, and extend ideas from scientific literature.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, stakeholder management, and communication skills.
• Proven ability to independently drive research initiatives from concept through adoption.
• Good to Have: PhD in a relevant field; publications in leading conferences; experience mentoring researchers; experience with RAG, LLMs, and agent-based frameworks; experience with Knowledge Graphs; experience in retail, consumer intelligence, ecommerce, or FMCG; experience with Databricks, SQL, Elasticsearch.

Responsabilidades

• Research, evaluate, and adapt state-of-the-art techniques to solve large-scale AI problems.
• Lead the development and application of machine learning innovations to complex business challenges with minimal supervision.
• Drive innovation in Information Retrieval, Product Matching, Recommendation Systems, NLP, and Generative AI.
• Assess applicability of emerging research and identify opportunities for adoption across multiple initiatives.
• Design and conduct advanced experiments and feasibility studies to guide technical strategy.
• Develop scalable, reproducible, and maintainable ML solutions and research frameworks.
• Collaborate with Applied AI and Engineering teams to enable adoption of research outcomes.
• Mentor and support other scientists and contribute to the technical growth of the team.
• Lead or contribute to publications, patents, and conference submissions.
• Communicate technical vision, research findings, and strategic recommendations to stakeholders across technical and business functions.
• Promote engineering excellence, scientific rigor, and best practices across research initiatives.

Conocimientos

Machine Learning

Deep Learning

Transformer models

Python

PyTorch

Hugging Face

NLP

Information Retrieval

Vector databases

Communication skills

Educación

PhD in CS/AI/ML

Masters in CS/AI

Herramientas

Python

PyTorch

Pandas

Scikit-learn

Git

Faiss

ChromaDB

Pinecone

Descripción del empleo

NIQ is seeking a senior AI/ML leader to drive research and apply state-of-the-art techniques to large-scale problems in recommender systems, NLP, and related domains. You will oversee experiments, mentor scientists, and collaborate with engineering teams to translate research into production-ready solutions.

The role emphasizes strong analytical skills, ability to communicate findings to non-technical stakeholders, and a track record of guiding research from concept to adoption.