Senior Applied ML Scientist - 1086

Lightcast; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Lightcast seeks a Senior NLP / Machine Learning Scientist to join our AI/ML Lab in Moscow, Idaho. You will build state-of-the-art NLP models for large-scale labor market data, covering classification, information extraction, and multilingual NLP.

This role spans the full model lifecycle—from experimentation and fine-tuning to production inference in AWS, with collaboration across ML engineers and data scientists. A strong focus on productionization and scalable pipelines is required.

Qualifications

• Masters or PhD in CS/ML/NLP or related field.
• Experience deploying NLP/ML systems in production.
• Strong Python and PyTorch; hands-on with Hugging Face.
• Experience with AWS, Docker, MLflow or similar MLOps tooling.
• Experience with multilingual NLP, semantic matching, or knowledge graphs.

Responsibilities

• Build NLP models for classification, extraction, normalization, linking, and semantic matching.
• Develop transformer-based and embedding-based models (BERT, DeBERTa, ModernBERT, etc.).
• Fine-tune LLMs using LoRA, QLoRA, PEFT, and distillation.
• Evaluate model choices by accuracy, latency, throughput, and cost.
• Optimize production inference with quantization, batching, and accelerated runtimes.
• Collaborate with ML/data engineers to deploy pipelines in AWS.

Skills

NLP

Machine learning

Python

PyTorch

Research

Mentoring

Education

Master's degree or PhD in CS/ML/NLP

Tools

Hugging Face

AWS

Docker

SageMaker

ONNX

TensorRT

Job description

Important information before applying:

Location: This position is based on-site in Moscow, Idaho, and requires five days per week in the office. We will consider only candidates who currently live locally or are willing to relocate.

Work Authorization: To respect your time, we cannot provide employment visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Before applying, please confirm that you are authorized to work in the United States without current or future employer sponsorship.

Lightcast is seeking a Senior NLP / Machine Learning Scientist to join our AI/ML Lab andbuild state-of-the-art NLP models for large-scale labor market data.You will develop and productionize models that transform unstructured data such as jobpostings and professional profiles into structured labor market intelligence. Core problem areasinclude classification, information extraction, entity recognition, normalization, semanticmatching, and multilingual NLP.This role spans the full model lifecycle—from experimentation and fine-tuning to evaluation,optimization, and production inference at scale.

Major Responsibilities:

• Build NLP models for classification, extraction, normalization, entity linking, and semanticmatching.
• Develop transformer-based and embedding-based models using architectures such asBERT, DeBERTa, ModernBERT, Sentence Transformers, and modern foundationmodels.
• Fine-tune and adapt LLMs using techniques such as supervised fine-tuning, LoRA,QLoRA, PEFT, and distillation.
• Evaluate when to use LLMs versus smaller task-specific models based on accuracy,latency, throughput, and cost.
• Optimize models for production using quantization, distillation, batching, modelcompilation, and efficient inference frameworks.
• Develop multilingual NLP models and cross-lingual approaches for global labor marketdata.
• Design robust evaluation frameworks, perform error analysis, and continuously improvemodel quality.
• Partner with ML and data engineers to deploy scalable models and training pipelines inAWS.
• Stay current with advances in NLP, LLMs, embeddings, and efficient machine learning,and translate promising research into production systems.
• Mentor team members and contribute to technical standards and modeling strategy.

Education and Experience:

• Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, NLP, or a related field.
• Strong experience building and deploying production NLP or ML systems.
• Deep understanding of transformers, embeddings, classification, information extraction,and entity normalization.
• Strong Python and PyTorch experience; hands-on experience with Hugging Face orsimilar frameworks.
• Experience with large-scale model training, evaluation, and productionization.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to independently drive ambiguous ML problemsfrom research to production.
• Hands-on experience fine-tuning LLMs or foundation models.
• Experience with LoRA, QLoRA, PEFT, instruction tuning, or model distillation.
• Experience with model inference optimization, including quantization, ONNX, TensorRT,vLLM, TorchCompile, or GPU optimization.
• Experience with multilingual NLP, semantic search, retrieval, entity linking, or knowledgegraphs.
• Experience with AWS, SageMaker, Docker, MLflow, or similar MLOps tooling.

Lightcast is a global leader in labor market insights with our headquarters located in Moscow, ID (US) and other offices in the United Kingdom, Europe, and India. We work with partners across six continents to help drive economic prosperity and mobility by providing the insights needed to build and develop our people, our institutions and companies, and our communities.

Lightcast is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and does not discriminate on the basis of federally protected statuses. Lightcast has always been, and always will be, committed to diversity of thought and unique perspectives. We seek dynamic professionals from all backgrounds to join our teams, and we encourage our employees to bring their authentic, original, and best selves to work.