Lead AI Scientist & Production ML Architect

Pearson; Lincoln (NE); Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Pearson is seeking a strategic and hands-on Lead Specialist- AI Scientist to design, build, deploy, and scale production AI/ML capabilities powering learner intelligence, knowledge graphs, recommendations, and personalized learning experiences.

The role bridges AI research, data science, software engineering, and product delivery, leading end-to-end AI delivery and establishing scalable MLOps/AIOps practices across Pearson products.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience building and deploying production AI/ML systems.
• Strong experience with Generative AI, LLMs, RAG, knowledge graphs, or agentic AI.
• Hands-on experience with foundation models and modern AI frameworks.
• Proficiency in Python and API/CI/CD/version control practices.
• Experience designing scalable AI platforms and deployments in AWS or similar.
• Experience with containerization, orchestration, and IaC.
• Experience evaluating and optimizing AI systems for quality, latency, cost.
• Experience with OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, LangGraph, LangChain, Semantic Kernel, vector databases.
• Strong collaboration and communication with product, engineering, business.
• Bachelor's in CS/Engineering/Data Science/AI or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development, deployment, and operation of production AI capabilities.
• Design and deliver Generative AI, LLM, RAG, and agentic AI solutions with measurable impact.
• Build reusable AI platform components, services, APIs, and workflows.
• Own end-to-end AI delivery lifecycle from prototyping to production.
• Establish scalable MLOps and AIOps practices for training, deployment, governance.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Design, Learning Science, Data Science teams.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and maintain balance of quality, safety, latency, cost.
• Establish best practices for responsible AI, evaluation, and governance.
• Mentor engineers and data scientists to uplift AI capabilities.
• Communicate strategy, architecture, and risks to stakeholders.

Skills

AI/ML systems

Generative AI

LLMs

RAG architectures

Knowledge graphs

Recommendation systems

Foundation models

Python

APIs

CI/CD

Version control

Production ops

AWS

Docker

Kubernetes

Infrastructure as Code

Monitoring

OpenAI

LangGraph

Vector databases

Stakeholder collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

Masters/PhD

Tools

OpenAI

Anthropic

Bedrock

Azure OpenAI

LangChain

Semantic Kernel

Vector databases

Job description

Pearson is seeking a strategic and hands-on Lead Specialist- AI Scientist to design, build, deploy, and scale production AI/ML capabilities powering learner intelligence, knowledge graphs, recommendations, and personalized learning experiences.

The role bridges AI research, data science, software engineering, and product delivery, leading end-to-end AI delivery and establishing scalable MLOps/AIOps practices across Pearson products.