Remote Principal Applied Scientist, World Model

ZINC Zillow, Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 196,000 - 312,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity awards

Remote work

Job summary

Zillow is seeking a Principal Applied Scientist to help build the Zillow World Model, a foundational, uncertainty-aware representation of the housing market that ties together supply, demand and macro conditions. You will partner with the World Model group and cross-functional teams to translate state-of-the-art research into production impact and guide decision-making across real estate markets.

The role emphasizes end-to-end research ownership, technical leadership, and mentorship, with a

Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Economics, or a related quantitative field.
• Hands-on experience building latent state-space or world models with uncertainty.
• Ability to turn large-scale user behavior data into structured demand representations.
• Practical causal inference in observational settings and judgment on counterfactuals.
• Proven record delivering open-ended research projects with technical leadership.
• Strong programming skills, especially Python, plus ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.

Responsibilities

• Build the demand layer of the World Model by converting shopper behavior into structured demand representations.
• Design and train latent state-space or sequential dynamics models with calibrated uncertainty for multi-step rollouts.
• Estimate willingness-to-pay and market-clearing dynamics.
• Apply causal identification in observational data and determine when a counterfactual claim can be made.
• Lead and mentor scientists and ML engineers to translate research into production impact.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

Causal inference

World models

Research leadership

Education

PhD in CS/ML/Statistics

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

Zillow is seeking a Principal Applied Scientist to help build the Zillow World Model, a foundational, uncertainty-aware representation of the housing market that ties together supply, demand and macro conditions. You will partner with the World Model group and cross-functional teams to translate state-of-the-art research into production impact and guide decision-making across real estate markets.

The role emphasizes end-to-end research ownership, technical leadership, and mentorship, with a