Principal Applied Scientist- AI

Socket.dev; Bellevue (WA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

UiPath is seeking a Principal Applied Scientist to lead the research and development of frontier AI systems that combine foundation models, multimodal reasoning, agentic workflows, and post-training techniques to build autonomous software capable of operating enterprise applications like a human.

You will lead research at the intersection of applied research and production engineering—designing new algorithms, training and evaluating large models, and shipping systems to enterprise customers.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent research experience in CS/ML/AI or related discipline.
• Significant experience building and deploying production AI systems based on LLMs or multimodal models.
• Ownership of end-to-end ML systems from research to deployment.
• Strong Python programming and practical experience with ML frameworks (PyTorch).
• Experience training or fine-tuning large models using distributed compute.

Responsibilities

• Lead research and development of large-scale foundation models and agentic AI systems for enterprise automation.
• Design approaches for post-training, model alignment, RLHF, and synthetic data generation.
• Develop scalable evaluation frameworks for reasoning, tool use, planning, and autonomous task completion.
• Build production-quality AI systems that integrate LLMs, multimodal models, retrieval, planning, memory, and external tools.
• Mentor scientists and engineers, raising technical bar across the organization.

Skills

Foundation model training

LLM post-training

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feed

Python

PyTorch

Distributed training

Model alignment

Azure AI

Kubernetes

Education

PhD or equivalent research experience

Tools

PyTorch

JAX

CUDA

LangGraph

Job description

Life at UiPath

The people at UiPath believe in the transformative power of automation to change how the world works. We’re committed to creating category-leading enterprise software that unleashes that power.

To make that happen, we need people who are curious, self-propelled, generous, and genuine. People who love being part of a fast-moving, fast-thinking growth company. And people who care—about each other, about UiPath, and about our larger purpose.

Could that be you?

Your Mission

At UiPath, we believe the next generation of software won't simply automate tasks—it will reason, plan, adapt, and act autonomously.

As a Principal Applied Scientist, you'll help invent that future.

You will lead the research and development of frontier AI systems that combine foundation models, multimodal reasoning, agentic workflows, and post-training techniques to build autonomous software capable of operating enterprise applications like a human.

This is an individual contributor leadership role for scientists who enjoy building. You'll work at the intersection of applied research and production engineering—designing new algorithms, training and evaluating large models, developing novel post-training methods, and shipping systems that reach enterprise customers.

If you're passionate about pushing the limits of LLMs, multimodal models, reasoning, planning, tool use, and AI agents—and you enjoy transforming research into products—this is the role for you.

About the Team

Our Advanced Machine Learning organization is building large multimodal foundation models capable of understanding enterprise software, reasoning over complex workflows, planning long-horizon tasks, and autonomously interacting with digital systems.

Our work spans:

• Foundation models

• Agentic AI

• Multimodal reasoning

• Reinforcement learning

• Post-training

• Model alignment

• Evaluation systems

• Enterprise AI agents

Our mission is to advance practical general intelligence for enterprise automation.

What You'll Do

• Lead research and development of large-scale foundation models and agentic AI systems for enterprise automation.

• Design novel approaches for post-training, model alignment, reinforcement learning, preference optimization, and synthetic data generation.

• Develop scalable evaluation frameworks that measure reasoning, tool use, planning, and autonomous task completion.

• Build production-quality AI systems that combine LLMs, multimodal models, retrieval, planning, memory, and external tool use.

• Drive innovations in long-context reasoning, workflow generation, autonomous software interaction, and multi-agent orchestration.

• Design large-scale experiments, analyze model behavior, and iterate using data-driven evaluation.

• Collaborate closely with engineering and product teams to transition research into production systems.

• Mentor scientists and engineers while raising the technical bar across the organization.

• Influence UiPath's long-term AI strategy through technical leadership and scientific innovation.

What We're Looking For

We're looking for scientists who have successfully taken frontier AI research from idea to production.

The ideal candidate has deep expertise in several of the following:

• Foundation model training

• LLM post-training

• Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF)

• Preference optimization (DPO, PPO, GRPO or similar methods)

• Reward modeling

• Synthetic data generation

• Model evaluation

• Agentic reasoning

• Tool use

• Function calling

• Long-horizon planning

• Multimodal learning

• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

• Distributed training and inference

• Large-scale PyTorch systems

• Model alignment and safety

Preferred Experience

• PhD or equivalent research experience in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, Robotics, or a related discipline.

• Significant experience building and deploying production AI systems based on large language models or multimodal foundation models.

• Demonstrated ownership of end-to-end ML systems—from research and experimentation through production deployment.

• Strong programming skills in Python and deep experience with modern ML frameworks such as PyTorch.

• Experience training or fine-tuning large models using distributed compute infrastructure.

• Strong publication record or demonstrated technical leadership in applied AI is highly valued.

• Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence technical direction across organizations.

Technologies We Work With

While experience with every technology is not expected, many members of our team work with:

• PyTorch

• JAX

• CUDA

• vLLM

• Ray

• DeepSpeed

• FSDP

• Triton

• LangGraph

• Semantic Kernel

• MCP

• Vector databases

• Kubernetes

• Azure AI

• Hugging Face

• Distributed GPU training infrastructure

You'll Thrive Here If You...

• Love building AI systems—not just publishing papers.

• Enjoy tackling ambiguous, first-principles problems.

• Are excited by rapidly evolving research.

• Think deeply about evaluation as much as modeling.

• Care about elegant engineering as much as novel algorithms.

• Want your research to power products used by millions of people.

Maybe you don’t tick all the boxes above—but still think you’d be great for the job? Go ahead, apply anyway. Please. Because we know that experience comes in all shapes and sizes—and passion can’t be learned.

Many of our roles allow for flexibility in when and where work gets done. Depending on the needs of the business and the role, the number of hybrid, office-based, and remote workers will vary from team to team. Applications are assessed on a rolling basis and there is no fixed deadline for this requisition. The application window may change depending on the volume of applications received or may close immediately if a qualified candidate is selected.

We value a range of diverse backgrounds, experiences and ideas. We pride ourselves on our diversity and inclusive workplace that provides equal opportunities to all persons regardless of age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression, national origin, disability, neurodiversity, military and/or veteran status, or any other protected classes. Additionally, UiPath provides reasonable accommodations for candidates on request and respects applicants' privacy rights. To review these and other legal disclosures, visit our privacy policy.