PhD Research Associate (Industry PhD Program) - Artificial Intelligence, SAP Labs Singapore

SAP Belgium NV/SA; Singapore; On-site; SGD 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A global software company in Singapore seeks a PhD Research Associate to innovate in Business AI while pursuing a PhD at NUS. This position focuses on generative AI research and practical software applications, requiring strong academic credentials and programming skills. Join a collaborative team committed to groundbreaking advancements in AI and machine learning.

Benefits

Constant learning opportunities

Flexible working models

Strong focus on health and wellbeing

Qualifications

• Experience with machine and deep learning software packages.
• Hands-on programming experience in multiple languages.
• Strong desire to overcome obstacles in AI.

Responsibilities

• Conduct cutting-edge research in generative AI and machine learning.
• Explore and implement recent research approaches.
• Work closely with data science and engineering teams.

Skills

Machine learning

Deep learning

Python

Communication skills

Education

Undergraduate or master’s degree in computer science, mathematics, statistics

Acceptance to NUS PhD program

Tools

Python

C

Java

Scala

Job description

We help the world run better

At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we’ll bring out the best in you. We’re builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what’s next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You’ll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What’s in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed.

SAP will be prioritizing candidates with full working rights in Singapore.

At SAP, we enable you to bring out your best. Our company culture is focused on collaboration and a shared passion to help the world run better. How? We focus every day on building the foundation for tomorrow and creating a workplace that embraces differences, values flexibility, and is aligned to our purpose-driven and future-focused work. We offer a highly collaborative, caring team environment with a strong focus on learning and development, recognition for your individual contributions, and a variety of benefit options for you to choose from.

About SAP

A market leader in end-to-end business application software, SAP helps more than 425,000 customers worldwide work together more efficiently. We know that a diverse and inclusive workforce keeps us competitive and provides opportunities for all. We believe that together we can transform industries, grow economics, lift societies, and sustain our environment. Because it’s the best-run businesses that make the world run better and improve people’s lives. At SAP, we build breakthroughs, together.

About SAP Labs Singapore

SAP Labs Singapore is the 20th engineering hub in the SAP Labs Network and is the newest innovation hub at SAP that drives product leadership, fosters the best talent, and aims to boost ecosystem and community engagement with a variety of initiatives. It provides an open, modern working environment and the opportunity to become part of the global SAP engineering community.

Role

As a PhD Research Associate, under the Industry PhD program (IPP), you will be at the forefront of innovation in Business AI. You will work full-time at the SAP Business AI unit while pursuing your PhD degree at the National University of Singapore (NUS). You will conduct cutting‑edge research in generative AI and machine learning and publish your findings in top academic conferences and journals aligned to internal guidelines. Possible PhD topics, informed by real industry problems, include AI agents based on large language models (LLMs) and vision models, robust LLM‑based evaluation, resilient multimodal retrieval‑augmented‑generation (RAG), document AI, multimodal LLMs for tabular AI, and synthetic data for anomaly detection. Your research will be supervised by a mentor at SAP and an academic supervisor at the university.

While your focus will be on research and completing your PhD, you will be able to gain industry exposure through working on projects with our data scientists and developers to embed the latest advancements in AI/ML into our software products. This unique opportunity combines academic pursuit with practical experience, allowing you to gain valuable insights into the real‑world impact of your research. Successful candidates need to be accepted into the PhD program by NUS.

Expectations and tasks

Your tasks include:

• Push the frontiers of what is possible in AI in an SAP‑defined research project

• Explore, understand, and implement recent research approaches and find ways to improve it

• Understand business processes and assess business relevance of AI solutions

• Create excellence both in terms of research results quality and system scalability

• Communicate the relevance of implemented systems and achieved results in a visual and consistent way

• Work closely with the data science and engineering teams to transfer research results into product code base

• Ability to work in global teams with different time zones

• Immerse yourself quickly into new topics, terminology, and development tasks

• Complete all academic requirements and your PhD degree on time

Educational and experience requirements

Required

• Undergraduate or master’s degree in computer science, mathematics, statistics, or equivalent fields

• Acceptance to NUS PhD program

• Experience with machine and deep learning software packages and frameworks

• Hands‑on with programming languages such as Python, C, Java, Scala

• Experience in Large Language Models, Generative Pre‑trained Transformer models, foundational models etc.

• Strong desire to overcome obstacles and make your work benefit SAP’s customers

• Excellent written and communication skills in English

Optional

• Publication track record on deep learning and machine learning

• Operational knowledge of Linux distributions

• Familiar with Agile/Scrum methodologies

Job Segment: Data Science, AI Developer, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence

Bring out your best

SAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with 200 million users and more than 100,000 employees worldwide, we are purpose‑driven and future‑focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best.

We win with inclusion

SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well‑being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better world.

SAP is committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provides accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you need accommodation or assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e‑mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: [e-mail].

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, etc.), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability, in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local legal requirements.

Successful candidates might be required to undergo a background verification with an external vendor.

AI Usage in the Recruitment Process

For information on the responsible use of AI in our recruitment process, please refer to our Guidelines for Ethical Usage of AI in the Recruiting Process (https://jobs.sap.com/content/Ethical_usage_of_AI_in_the_recruiting_process/?locale=en_US). Any violation of these guidelines may result in disqualification from the hiring process.