Applied AI Scientist: Build Production-Ready AI

Lumen; Sacramento (CA); On-site; USD 116,000 - 194,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Life insurance

Wellness programs

Job summary

Lumen is seeking a highly technical Applied AI Scientist to design, develop, deploy, and optimize AI-powered solutions that solve meaningful business challenges. You will partner with business, product, engineering, and technology teams to identify opportunities, rapidly prototype solutions, and deliver production-ready AI capabilities.

The ideal candidate blends hands-on modeling with system design, leveraging LLMs, RAG, NLP, and MLOps to improve customer experiences and operational outcomes.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in applied AI, machine learning, data science, or a related field.
• Experience developing and deploying production AI or machine learning solutions.
• Strong expertise in machine learning, statistics, predictive modeling, experimentation, and analytics.
• Experience building solutions utilizing LLMs, RAG architectures, vector databases, and modern AI frameworks.
• Proficiency in Python and common AI/ML toolsets such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, LangChain, MLflow, or similar technologies.
• Experience working with cloud platforms and production software environments.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to communicate technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.
• Experience working in cross-functional agile teams.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy AI and machine learning solutions from proof of concept through production.
• Partner with business and product stakeholders to identify use cases, define objectives, and measure impact.
• Build solutions leveraging machine learning, generative AI, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), NLP, predictive analytics, and agentic workflows.
• Develop and maintain evaluation frameworks to ensure solution quality, accuracy, reliability, and performance.
• Collaborate closely with Engineering teams to operationalize AI solutions using MLOps and LLMOps best practices.
• Contribute reusable code, tools, models, and frameworks that accelerate AI adoption across the enterprise.
• Stay current on emerging AI technologies and recommend innovative approaches to business challenges.
• Contribute to technical best practices and knowledge sharing across the team.

Skills

Applied AI

Machine Learning

Python

LLMs

MLOps

Communication

Education

Master's degree

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

LangChain

MLflow

Job description

Lumen is seeking a highly technical Applied AI Scientist to design, develop, deploy, and optimize AI-powered solutions that solve meaningful business challenges. You will partner with business, product, engineering, and technology teams to identify opportunities, rapidly prototype solutions, and deliver production-ready AI capabilities.

The ideal candidate blends hands-on modeling with system design, leveraging LLMs, RAG, NLP, and MLOps to improve customer experiences and operational outcomes.