Lead Data Scientist - AI-Human Interaction

Humana Inc; Sacramento (CA); Remote; USD 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading health services company is seeking a Lead Data Scientist to drive AI innovations that enhance human-AI interaction. The ideal candidate will have a Master's degree, proven experience in building production-grade AI models, and strong collaboration skills across teams. This remote role involves developing machine learning pipelines and mentoring a dynamic team to ensure effective AI solutions in healthcare.

Benefits

Work-Life Balance

Generous PTO package

Health benefits effective day 1

Annual Incentive Plan

401K - Excellent company match

Well-being program

Paid Volunteer Time Off

Qualifications

• Master's Degree and 4+ years of experience in research/ML engineering.
• Proven track record building production-grade AI models.
• Strong communication skills to bridge data science, product, and engineering.

Responsibilities

• Develop and own ML pipelines for improving human-AI interaction.
• Design adaptive models for intent recognition and personalization.
• Mentor a team of data scientists and collaborate with AI researchers.

Job description

Become a part of our caring community and help us put health first

The Enterprise AI organization at Humana is a pioneering force, driving AI innovation across our Insurance and CenterWell business segments. By collaborating with world-leading experts, we are at the forefront of delivering cutting-edge AI technologies for improving care quality and experience of millions of consumers. We are actively seeking top talent to develop robust and reusable AI modules and pipelines, ensuring adherence to best practices in accountable AI for effective risk management and measurement. Join us in shaping the future of healthcare through AI excellence.

We are seeking a Lead Data Scientist to define and drive the new frontier of AI-Human interaction. You will lead the design of adaptive, human-aware AI systems that learn form, respond to, and collaborate with humans in real-world environments. This role blends cutting-edge research, robust experimentation, and product-focused execution to improve user trust, alignment, usability, and agent cooperation across intelligent interfaces.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and own ML pipelines for evaluating and improving human-AI interaction across modalities (text, speech, UI/UX feedback, behavioral signals)
• Design adaptive models for intent recognition, dialog state tracking, preference learning, and multi-turn personalization
• Lead human-in-the-loop data collection strategies and feedback integration to fine-tune agent behaviors
• Partner with UX, engineering, and safety teams to embed explainability, user control, and alignment into AI systems
• Develop and monitor human-centered evaluation metrics (e.g., helpfulness, latency, trust calibration, long-term engagement)
• Construct causal inference and A/B testing to assess impact of interaction strategies on behavior and outcomes
• Mentor a team of data scientists and collaborate with AI researchers and product leaders on foundational interaction improvements
• Experience in creating reports, projections, models, and presentations to executives

Technical Skills

• Proficiency in SQL, Python, and data analysis/data mining tools.
• Experience with machine learning frameworks like Pytorch, JAX, LangChain, or LangGraph
• Experience with high performance, large-scale ML systems
• Experience with language modeling with transformers
• Experience designing human-centered evaluation protocols, metrics, and pipelines
• Experience with +5 years of experience in applied ML, with at least 3+ in conversational AI, human-in-the-loop systems, or agent UX optimization
• Experience with large-scale ETL

Use Your Skills to Make an Impact

Required Qualifications

• Master's Degree and 4+ years of experience in research/ML engineering or an applied research scientist position preferably with a focus on developing production-ready AI solutions
• 2+ years of experience leading development of AI/ML systems
• Proven track record building production-grade AI models with strong UX and behavioral outcomes
• Expertise in supervised learning, reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), or preference modeling
• Strong communication skills with ability to bridge data science, product, and engineering

Preferred Qualifications

• Ph.D. in in Machine Learning, Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, NLP, or related field
• LLM-based agent or copilot systems (e.g., OpenAI GPT agents, Claude, Gemini, Mistral, open-agent frameworks)
• Experience working with voice assistants, AR/VR interfaces, or embodied agents
• Familiarity with ethical considerations and safety alignment in interactive systems
• Contributions to human-AI interaction research or open-source tools

Location/Work Style: Remote US

Why Humana?

At Humana, we know your well-being is important to you, and it’s important to us too. That’s why we’re committed to making resources available to you that will enable you to become happier, healthier, and more productive in all areas of your life. Just to name a few:

• Work-Life Balance
• Generous PTO package
• Health benefits effective day 1
• Annual Incentive Plan
• 401K - Excellent company match
• Well-being program
• Paid Volunteer Time Off

If you share our passion for helping people, we likely have the right place for you at Humana.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is the policy of Humana not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, disability or protected veteran status. It is also the policy of Humana to take affirmative action, in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and VEVRAA, to employ and to advance in employment individuals with disability or protected veteran status, and to base all employment decisions only on valid job requirements.