Principal DSP Optimization Scientist (AI-Driven Research)

Yahoo Holdings Inc. in; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 161,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work options

Job summary

Yahoo DSP Research is seeking a Principal Research Scientist to drive next-generation budget control, pacing, and bidding algorithms at scale. You will lead high-velocity AI-augmented research-to-production loops and mentor senior scientists and engineers.

You will shape architectural direction for the optimization stack, apply advanced control theory and ML, and collaborate with product and engineering leaders to deliver measurable impact across real-time marketplaces.

Qualifications

• PhD in a quantitative field (CS/EE/OR/Statistics/Math).
• 8+ years of hands-on experience designing and deploying large-scale optimization, control systems, or ML models in production.
• Deep mathematical foundation in probability, convex/stochastic optimization, and control theory.

Responsibilities

• Lead research, architectural design, and deployment of large-scale algorithms for budget pacing, bid optimization, and marketplace balance.
• Architect and lead agentic AI workflows and automated experiment orchestration to accelerate research-to-production velocity.
• Provide technical strategy and long-term vision for the DSP optimization ecosystem with leadership alignment.
• Apply control theory, optimization, and ML to real-time marketplace dynamics with 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 rigorous evaluation.
• Partner with engineering and product teams to ensure scalable algorithm designs in production.
• Mentor senior scientists and engineers, establishing standards and fostering AI-forward culture.
• Communicate strategy and results clearly to executives and cross-functional partners.

Skills

Research leadership

Strong communication

Mentoring

Experiment design

Problem solving

Education

Ph.D. in quantitative field

Tools

Python

Java

C++

SQL

Spark

GitHub Copilot

Cursor

Claude

Gemini

ChatGPT

Job description

Yahoo DSP Research is seeking a Principal Research Scientist to drive next-generation budget control, pacing, and bidding algorithms at scale. You will lead high-velocity AI-augmented research-to-production loops and mentor senior scientists and engineers.

You will shape architectural direction for the optimization stack, apply advanced control theory and ML, and collaborate with product and engineering leaders to deliver measurable impact across real-time marketplaces.