AI Research Scientist - NLP Focus

Placements24; Waukee (IA); On-site; USD 55,000 - 91,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary & research grants

Health and wellness benefits

Professional development incl. conf.

Extensive computing resources

Stimulating research environment

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking an AI Research Scientist specializing in NLP to join their lab in Paarl, Western Cape. You will conduct cutting-edge research, develop novel NLP models, and contribute to state-of-the-art AI applications in a collaborative environment.

The role emphasizes a strong theoretical background and practical implementation skills, with opportunities to publish findings, attend conferences, and access substantial computing resources for advanced NLP research.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. or Master's degree in CS/Computational Linguistics with NLP focus.
• 4+ years of NLP or ML research experience.
• Strong DL architectures for NLP (RNNs, LSTMs, Transformers).
• Proficiency in Python and NLP libraries (NLTK, spaCy) and ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Experience with large text datasets and language models.
• Excellent problem-solving abilities and passion for scientific discovery.

Responsibilities

• Conduct advanced research in NLP areas such as text classification, sentiment analysis, MT, and text generation.
• Develop and implement novel deep learning models for NLP tasks.
• Experiment with and fine-tune large language models for specific applications.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to deploy NLP models into production environments.
• Publish research findings in top-tier NLP conferences and journals.
• Stay abreast of the latest NLP and ML advancements.

Skills

NLP research

Deep learning for NLP

Python programming

NLP libraries (NLTK, spaCy)

ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow)

Large text datasets

Education

Ph.D. or Master's in CS/Computational Linguistics with NLP focus

Tools

NLTK

spaCy

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

About the Role

Our client is looking for a highly motivated AI Research Scientist specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to join their innovative lab in Paarl, Western Cape. This role is central to advancing our client's capabilities in AI & Emerging Technologies, particularly in understanding and generating human language. You will conduct cutting‑edge research, develop novel NLP models, and contribute to state‑of‑the‑art applications. This is a unique opportunity to work on challenging problems in a collaborative environment, pushing the frontiers of NLP and contributing to impactful AI solutions. The role requires a strong theoretical background coupled with practical implementation skills.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct advanced research in areas such as text classification, sentiment analysis, machine translation, and text generation.
• Develop and implement novel deep learning models for NLP tasks.
• Experiment with and fine‑tune large language models (LLMs) for specific applications.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to deploy NLP models into production environments.
• Publish research findings in top‑tier NLP conferences and journals.
• Stay abreast of the latest advancements in NLP and machine learning research.

Requirements

• Ph.D. or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, or a related field with a focus on NLP.
• 4+ years of research experience in NLP or machine learning.
• Strong understanding of deep learning architectures for NLP (e.g., RNNs, LSTMs, Transformers).
• Proficiency in Python and experience with NLP libraries (e.g., NLTK, spaCy) and ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Experience working with large text datasets and language models.
• Excellent problem‑solving abilities and a passion for scientific discovery in Paarl.

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary and potential for research grants.
• Comprehensive health and wellness benefits.
• Opportunities for professional development, including conference attendance.
• Access to significant computing resources for research purposes.
• A dynamic and intellectually stimulating research environment.