Lead Applied Scientist

TRSS; Ann Arbor (MI); On-site; USD 148,000 - 274,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible vacation

Mental health days

Tuition reimbursement

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

Thomson Reuters Labs (TR Labs) seeks a Lead Applied Scientist to define research strategy and steer AI/ML roadmaps across multiple product features. You will lead initiatives from prototyping to production, driving innovation in legal reasoning, document understanding, and knowledge graphs while mentoring scientists.

You will translate complex customer problems into scalable AI solutions, influence product roadmaps, and collaborate with product, engineering, and business teams.

Qualifications

• PhD or Master's degree with equivalent industry experience in CS, ML, or related field.
• 7+ years of hands-on experience building production IR, NLP, ML, or GenAI systems.
• Demonstrated experience leading through others in cross-functional teams to deliver end-to-end AI capabilities.
• Strong product mindset, with the ability to translate complex customer problems into successful AI applications.
• Proven ability to demonstrate novel methods that influence product roadmaps and business outcomes.
• Outstanding communication and analytical skills.
• Deep expertise in RAG architectures, agentic frameworks, tool-using systems, and evaluation methodologies.
• Publications at top-tier venues (ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, NeurIPS, ICLR, SIGIR, KDD).
• Experience delivering production code with well-managed software/MLOps practices.

Responsibilities

• Define the research strategy for focus areas and align with the AI/ML roadmap across product features.
• Lead high-impact initiatives from early experimentation through production-ready AI capabilities.
• Drive innovation in legal reasoning, document understanding, and knowledge graphs.
• Design, evaluate, and advance RAG architectures and tool-using systems for complex use cases.
• Establish best practices, evaluation methodologies, and technical standards.
• Understand customer problems and translate into AI solutions.
• Show how novel methods influence product roadmaps and business outcomes.
• Lead stakeholder engagement across product, engineering, and business teams.
• Mentor scientists and grow scientific depth and leadership.
• Provide thought leadership through internal and external channels.
• Deliver production-quality code with solid software/MLOps practices.

Skills

Research leadership

Strategic thinking

Communication skills

Analytical skills

Mentoring

Product mindset

Public speaking / publications

Education

PhD in Computer Science or related field

Master's degree in related field

Tools

Python

MLOps workflows

Job description

About the Role

Are you ready to work at the forefront of applied AI research, where your work reaches real customers instead of staying in a lab notebook?

Thomson Reuters Labs (TR Labs) is the AI Research & Development arm of Thomson Reuters. We experiment, we build, we deliver.
Our mission is to create industry-leading AI solutions for Legal and Tax & Accounting professionals. These people make decisions that affect businesses, courts, markets, and lives.
We systematically explore emerging AI/ML technologies, and we stay focused on real customer problems and opportunities.

The Lead Applied Scientist is a senior, high-influence scientific leader within TR Labs. In this role, you will set the research strategy and lead the initiatives that shape Thomson Reuters' AI/ML roadmap across multiple product features.

You will drive innovation in specialized domains such as legal reasoning, document understanding, and knowledge graphs. You will establish the best practices and technical vision that other teams build on.

You will also serve as a thought leader, both inside Thomson Reuters and in the wider AI community, mentoring scientists across Labs and leading engagement with key stakeholders.

This is a role for someone who wants their ideas to ship. You will work with product, engineering, and business leaders to turn new methods into capabilities that customers use every day.

What You'll Do

• Define the research strategy for your focus areas and align it with Thomson Reuters' AI/ML roadmap across multiple product features.
• Lead high-impact initiatives from early experimentation through to production-ready AI capabilities.
• Drive innovation in specialized domains such as legal reasoning, document understanding, and knowledge graphs.
• Design, evaluate, and advance RAG architectures, agentic frameworks, and tool-using systems for complex professional use cases.
• Establish best practices, evaluation methodologies, and technical standards that raise the quality bar across Labs.
• Develop a deep understanding of customer problems and the data that informs them, and translate that understanding into the right AI solutions.
• Show how novel methods can influence product roadmaps and business outcomes.
• Lead stakeholder engagement across product, engineering, and business teams.
• Mentor and grow scientists across Labs, building scientific depth and leadership capability.
• Provide thought leadership through internal forums, external publications, conferences, and industry communities.
• Deliver production-quality code with well-managed software and MLOps practices.

About You

You are a scientist who gets energy from turning hard, ambiguous problems into working solutions. You are comfortable moving between research and execution.

You can read a new paper in the morning, prototype an idea in the afternoon, and explain its business impact to a product leader the next day.

You combine deep technical expertise in modern AI with a strong product mindset. You are curious about the professional domains you work in, whether that is law, tax, medicine, or risk, and you want to understand customers' problems well enough to solve them properly.

You lead by influence. You build trust through scientific rigor, clear communication, and a genuine commitment to helping the people around you grow. You can explain complex ideas clearly to scientists, engineers, executives, and customers.

Qualifications

• PhD or Master's degree with equivalent industry experience in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field.
• 7+ years of hands‑on experience building production IR, NLP, ML, or GenAI systems using modern techniques.
• Demonstrated experience leading through others in cross‑functional teams to deliver end‑to‑end AI capabilities.
• Strong product mindset, with the ability to translate complex customer problems into successful AI applications.
• Proven ability to demonstrate novel methods that influence product roadmaps and business outcomes.
• Outstanding communication and analytical skills.
• Deep expertise in RAG architectures, agentic frameworks, tool‑using systems, and evaluation methodologies.
• Significant experience developing novel methods for complex professional domains such as medical, tax, or law.
• Publications at top‑tier venues (ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, NeurIPS, ICLR, SIGIR, KDD).
• Experience delivering production code with well‑managed software/MLOps practices.

#LI-LP2

This posting is for proactive recruitment purposes and may be used to fill current openings or future vacancies within our organization.

What's in it For You?

• Flexibility & Work‑Life Balance: Flex My Way is a set of supportive workplace policies designed to help manage personal and professional responsibilities, whether caring for family, giving back to the community, or finding time to refresh and reset. This builds upon our flexible work arrangements, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year, empowering employees to achieve a better work‑life balance.
• Career Development and Growth: By fostering a culture of continuous learning and skill development, we prepare our talent to tackle tomorrow's challenges and deliver real‑world solutions. Our Grow My Way programming and skills‑first approach ensures you have the tools and knowledge to grow, lead, and thrive in an AI-enabled future.
• Industry Competitive Benefits: We offer comprehensive benefit plans to include flexible vacation, two company‑wide Mental Health Days off, access to the Headspace app, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, employee incentive programs, and resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.
• Culture: Globally recognized, award‑winning reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work‑life balance, and more. We live by our values: Obsess over our Customers, Compete to Win, Challenge (Y)our Thinking, Act Fast / Learn Fast, and Stronger Together.
• Social Impact: Make an impact in your community with our Social Impact Institute. We offer employees two paid volunteer days off annually and opportunities to get involved with pro‑bono consulting projects and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives.
• Making a Real‑World Impact: We are one of the few companies globally that helps its customers pursue justice, truth, and transparency. Together, with the professionals and institutions we serve, we help uphold the rule of law, turn the wheels of commerce, catch bad actors, report the facts, and provide trusted, unbiased information to people all over the world.

Our use of AI within the recruitment process Thomson Reuters utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support parts of our global recruitment process. Unless you opt‑out, our AI system will assess the information provided by you and compare it to the requirements listed for the role, and present the result to our recruitment personnel for further review. The AI system acts as a supporting tool, but there is always a human making the decision if you will be considered for the role.

In the United States, Thomson Reuters offers a comprehensive benefits package to our employees. Our benefit package includes market competitive health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance programs, as well as a competitive 401k plan with company match. In addition, Thomson Reuters offers market leading work life benefits with competitive vacation, sick and safe paid time off, paid holidays (including two company mental health days off), parental leave, sabbatical leave. These benefits meet or exceeds the requirements of paid time off in accordance with any applicable state or municipal laws. Finally, Thomson Reuters offers the following additional benefits: optional hospital, accident and sickness insurance paid 100% by the employee; optional life and AD&D insurance paid 100% by the employee; Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts; fitness reimbursement; access to Employee Assistance Program; Group Legal Identity Theft Protection benefit paid 100% by employee; access to 529 Plan; commuter benefits; Adoption & Surrogacy Assistance; Tuition Reimbursement; and access to Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

Thomson Reuters complies with local laws that require upfront disclosure of the expected pay range for a position. The base compensation range varies across locations. For any eligible US locations, unless otherwise noted, the base compensation range for this role is $147,600 USD - $274,200 USD. For Ontario, Canada, the base compensation range for this role is $140,000 CAD - $175,000 CAD. Base pay is positioned within the range based on several factors including an individual's knowledge, skills and experience with consideration given to internal equity. Base pay is one part of a comprehensive Total Reward program which also includes flexible and supportive benefits and other wellbeing programs. This role may also be eligible for an Annual Bonus based on a combination of enterprise and individual performance.

This job posting will close 11/20/2026.

About Us

Thomson Reuters informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. We serve professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Our products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news.

We are powered by the talents of 26,000 employees across more than 70 countries, where everyone has a chance to contribute and grow professionally in flexible work environments. At a time when objectivity, accuracy, fairness, and transparency are under attack, we consider it our duty to pursue them. Sound exciting? Join us and help shape the industries that move society forward.

As a global business, we rely on the unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences of all employees to deliver on our business goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer providing a drug‑free workplace.

We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law. More information on requesting an accommodation here.

More information about Thomson Reuters can be found on thomsonreuters.com