AI Research Scientist, Ads Ranking

Meta; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 219,000 - 301,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Meta seeks a Research Scientist for its Ads Ranking group to advance core ML through novel algorithms and theory, with deployment to production systems. Collaboration with researchers, product teams, and infrastructure will shape a long-term research roadmap. The role emphasizes mentoring, publishing, and influencing across Meta's AI programs.

The candidate should have 12+ years in ML research with impactful, publishable work and a track record of turning research into real product improvements.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 12+ years of experience in machine learning research, including developing and publishing novel approaches.
• Track record of identifying and solving foundational ML problems with measurable impact.
• Experience defining multi-year research strategies and influencing technical direction across teams.

Responsibilities

• Identify and lead research on high-impact open problems in core machine learning, including optimization and generalization.
• Develop novel ML algorithms, architectures, and theoretical frameworks advancing the state of the art.
• Translate research findings into production-grade systems delivering measurable improvements to Meta's AI-powered products.
• Define and drive a long-term technical vision and research roadmap for a core ML domain.
• Establish extensible foundations, modeling standards, and evaluation frameworks across teams.
• Identify gaps in ML approaches and develop benchmarks to prevent modeling failures.
• Collaborate with researchers, product teams, and infrastructure to operationalize research at scale.
• Communicate findings via publications, reports, and presentations for the ML community.
• Mentor researchers and engineers, providing guided technical mentorship.
• Monitor advances in academic and industry ML to assess relevance and risk to Meta's strategy.

Skills

Artificial intelligence

Machine learning

Reinforcement learning

Optimization

Graph learning

Deep learning

Computational statistics

Data representation theory

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience

Job description

Meta is seeking a Research Scientist to join our Ads Ranking organization. Individuals in this role are expected to be recognized experts in areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computational statistics, particularly including areas such as: sequential decision making, graph learning, reinforcement learning, deep learning, data representation and theory, and optimization. The ideal candidate will have an interest in producing new science to understand intelligence and technology to make computers smarter, and an equal interest in taking new research findings in this area and implementing them towards product needs.

AI Research Scientist, Ads Ranking Responsibilities:

• Identify and lead research on the most challenging and high-impact open problems in core machine learning, including areas such as optimization, generalization, representation learning, and scalable training
• Develop novel machine learning algorithms, architectures, and theoretical frameworks that advance the state of the art and address previously intractable problems
• Translate fundamental research findings into production-grade systems that deliver measurable improvements to Meta's AI-powered products and infrastructure
• Define and drive the long-term technical vision and research roadmap for a core ML domain, gaining alignment across multiple research and engineering organizations
• Establish extensible technical foundations, modeling standards, and evaluation frameworks that promote consistency and quality across research teams and product areas
• Identify systemic gaps in existing ML approaches and develop invariants, benchmarks, and methodologies that prevent entire classes of modeling failures
• Collaborate with research engineers, product teams, and infrastructure organizations to ensure research advances are operationalized at scale with reliability and efficiency
• Communicate complex research findings through publications, technical reports, and presentations that serve as long-term reference points for the broader ML community
• Mentor other researchers and engineers across the organization, providing customized technical guidance and fostering rigorous and innovative research practices
• Monitor developments in the academic and industry ML landscape to identify emerging techniques and assess their relevance and risk to Meta's research strategy

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 12+ years of experience in machine learning research, including developing and publishing novel approaches in areas such as optimization, deep learning, representation learning, or related core ML domains
• Track record of identifying and solving foundational machine learning problems that have resulted in measurable impact on large-scale AI systems or products
• Experience defining multi-year research strategies and influencing technical direction across multiple teams or organizations
• Experience translating theoretical machine learning research into production systems, including designing experiments, defining evaluation metrics, and connecting research outcomes to organizational priorities
• Experience communicating complex machine learning concepts and research findings to both technical and non-technical audiences through publications, design documents, or technical presentations

Preferred Qualifications:

• Demonstrated ability to develop new debugging, evaluation, or verification methodologies that generalize across model families and prevent systemic failure modes
• Experience leading cross-organizational research programs in large-scale model training, efficient inference, or foundational model architectures
• Experience collaborating with applied research and product engineering teams to bring core ML advances from research prototype to global-scale deployment
• History of publishing influential research in top-tier machine learning venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, or equivalent, with demonstrated impact on the broader research community

About Meta:

Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology. People who choose to build their careers by building with us at Meta help shape a future that will take us beyond what digital connection makes possible today—beyond the constraints of screens, the limits of distance, and even the rules of physics.

Meta is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affinitve Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Meta participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law. Please note that Meta may leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in connection with applications for employment.

Meta is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at [e-mail].

$219,000/year to $301,000/year + bonus + equity + benefits

Individual compensation is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base hourly rate, monthly rate, or annual salary only, and do not include bonus, equity or sales incentives, if applicable. In addition to base compensation, Meta offers benefits. Learn more about benefits at Meta.