Lead Research Scientist, AI-Driven Ad Optimization

Yahoo Holdings Inc. in; Baltimore (MD); Hybrid; USD 161,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

Yahoo DSP Research team seeks a Principal Research Scientist to drive the next-generation architecture for budget control, pacing, and bidding. You will lead high-scale optimization work and advance AI-augmented development loops.

You will mentor senior researchers, partner with engineering and product management, and translate complex math into scalable, production-ready solutions across real-time bidding systems.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Operations Research, Statistics, Mathematics, or related quantitative field.
• 8+ years of hands-on experience designing and deploying large-scale optimization, control systems, or machine learning models in production environments.
• Deep foundation in probability, convex/stochastic optimization, and control theory.
• Proven experience with production languages and low-latency systems.
• Experience with AI pair-programming and developer automation tools.

Responsibilities

• Lead the research, architectural design, and deployment of large-scale algorithms for budget pacing, bid optimization, and marketplace balance.
• Architect and spearhead agentic AI workflows, automated experiment orchestration, and AI-driven validation.
• Provide technical strategy and long-term vision for the DSP optimization ecosystem.
• Apply control theory and ML to real-time marketplace dynamics under uncertainty.
• Direct AI-assisted code refactoring, automated testing suite generation, and LLM-driven research synthesis.
• Own multi-quarter research initiatives from formulation to production rollout with metrics.
• Collaborate with engineering and product management to scale algorithms.
• Mentor senior scientists and engineers, promoting AI-forward research culture.
• Communicate strategy and results clearly to executives and cross-functional partners.

Skills

Python

Java

C++

SQL

Spark

AI pair-programming

probability

control theory

convex optimization

stochastic optimization

Education

PhD in Computer Science or related quantitative field

Tools

Cursor

GitHub Copilot

Gemini

Claude

ChatGPT

Job description

Yahoo DSP Research team seeks a Principal Research Scientist to drive the next-generation architecture for budget control, pacing, and bidding. You will lead high-scale optimization work and advance AI-augmented development loops.

You will mentor senior researchers, partner with engineering and product management, and translate complex math into scalable, production-ready solutions across real-time bidding systems.