Data-Centric LLM Research Scientist

Institute of Foundation Models; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

401K Plan

Paid time off

Parental Leave

Employee Assistance Program

Life insurance

Job summary

The Institute of Foundation Models is seeking a Research Scientist focused on data-centric large language model development. You will advance how LLMs reason, retrieve, and interact with information sources, while building scalable systems and tooling for robust research and engineering.

Your work will shape high-impact AI systems at MBZUAI IFM. Ideal candidates have strong Python skills, experience with LLMs, data collection at scale, and collaboration across ML researchers to push

Qualifications

• Master’s in Computer Science, Data Science, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• PhD or equivalent research experience in ML/NLP with focus on reasoning and LLMs preferred.
• Experience with large language models, including fine-tuning and prompt engineering.
• Strong Python development skills for research-grade code and scalable data pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead research and implementation of reasoning-enhanced LLM capabilities.
• Design pipelines to collect, curate, and structure data for reasoning tasks.
• Build software to support fine-tuning, evaluation, and deployment of LLMs.
• Collaborate with ML researchers on information retrieval and RAG pipelines.
• Prototype tools and APIs for enabling LLMs to reason over external information.

Skills

LLM development

Python

Data pipelines

Research with ML

Prompt engineering

Multimodal interaction

System integration

Education

Master’s in CS/Data Science

PhD in ML/NLP (preferred)

Job description

The Institute of Foundation Models is seeking a Research Scientist focused on data-centric large language model development. You will advance how LLMs reason, retrieve, and interact with information sources, while building scalable systems and tooling for robust research and engineering.

Your work will shape high-impact AI systems at MBZUAI IFM. Ideal candidates have strong Python skills, experience with LLMs, data collection at scale, and collaboration across ML researchers to push