Senior Data Scientist - NLP/LLM Specialist

Scismic; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 155,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited PTO

401k program

Month-long sabbatical

Wellness days

Learning and development programs

Job summary

A global consulting firm is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to drive innovative NLP solutions. You'll collaborate with Fortune 500 clients, developing algorithms and frameworks that empower business strategies. Ideal candidates have a PhD and extensive experience with NLP and large language models. The role offers competitive compensation, including a salary range of $155k-$240k and comprehensive benefits including unlimited PTO, 401k, and more.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years of professional experience in data science or related roles.
• Advanced expertise in NLP and transformer architectures.
• Hands-on experience with fine-tuning large language models.

Responsibilities

• Lead client workshops to identify NLP opportunities.
• Develop and present proposals to C-level executives.
• Manage multiple client projects while maintaining quality.

Skills

Natural Language Processing

Large Language Models

Client communication

Python

Data analysis

Education

PhD in Computer Science or related field

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

SQL

AWS

Docker

Job description

Overview

Scismic is supporting a global consulting company that fosters a highly collaborative and inclusive culture, encouraging creativity, growth, and innovation. With a team of over 1,000 professionals across 50 global markets, the organization partners with world-class clients to solve complex business challenges across diverse industries. The company values a “builder’s mindset,” empowering employees to create new solutions, develop lasting impact, and grow their careers in a supportive environment.

The company is seeking an exceptional Senior Data Scientist with deep expertise in Natural Language Processing and Large Language Models to join the consulting practice. You\'ll work directly with Fortune 500 clients to solve complex business challenges using state-of-the-art AI technologies across diverse industries.

Ideal Candidate Profile

You combine academic rigor with practical engineering skills and exceptional client communication abilities. You will work end-to-end from project initiation through client delivery, comfortable both building sophisticated algorithms and presenting findings directly to clients. You excel at automating repetitive tasks and developing reusable frameworks that scale across multiple engagements. You should be comfortable implementing cutting-edge research while translating complex technical concepts into actionable business strategies. Strong presentation skills and the ability to build trust with senior executives are essential.

Equal Opportunities

Our mission is to create a positive and entrepreneurial environment where talented people thrive on creativity. We celebrate inclusivity and are committed to providing an inclusive environment for our employees. We do not tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind and are committed to building an agency where everyone is welcome, and every voice is heard. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

In order to comply with equal pay and salary transparency laws in various locations, we believe the target range of base compensation in all locations within the United States for this role is $155k-$240k. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and location.

Compensation and Benefits

In addition to medical, dental and vision coverage, we offer a generous unlimited PTO plan, 401k program and comprehensive benefits plan. Additional perks and benefits include a month-long sabbatical, active employee advocacy groups, globally driven inclusivity initiatives, wellness days, summer Fridays and learning and development programs for our employees.

Responsibilities

• Lead client workshops and discovery sessions to identify NLP opportunities
• Develop and present technical proposals to C-level executives
• Manage multiple client projects simultaneously while maintaining quality and timelines
• Design and implement novel NLP solutions for complex business problems
• Architect scalable solutions for processing and analyzing large text corpora
• Build custom language models tailored to each client\'s unique industry challenges
• Automate repetitive analytical tasks and develop reusable algorithmic frameworks
• Mentor junior data scientists and provide technical guidance on NLP projects
• Develop automated content analysis, document processing, and customer insight systems
• Create scalable text analytics platforms that drive measurable business outcomes
• Work across retail, finance, healthcare, and media sectors
• Translate complex AI capabilities into clear business value propositions

Technical Environment

• Languages: Python (primary), R, SQL, potentially C++ for optimization
• ML Frameworks: PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face Transformers
• Infrastructure: Kubernetes, Docker, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)
• Tools: MLflow, Weights & Biases, Apache Airflow, Spark, Vector databases

Required Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Econometrics, or related quantitative field
• Minimum 5 years of professional experience in data science, machine learning, or related roles
• Advanced NLP expertise: Deep understanding of transformer architectures, attention mechanisms, and modern NLP techniques
• Large Language Model proficiency: Hands-on experience with LLM fine-tuning, prompt engineering, RLHF, and deployment at scale
• Programming mastery: Expert-level Python, with strong knowledge of PyTorch/TensorFlow, Hugging Face ecosystem
• MLOps & Infrastructure: Experience with model deployment, monitoring, and scaling in production environments
• Experience writing production code and ensuring well-managed software delivery
• Experience with foundation models (GPT, BERT, T5, LLaMA, etc.)
• Knowledge of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems
• Understanding of model compression techniques (quantization, distillation, pruning)
• Experience with evaluation metrics and benchmarking for language models

Preferred

• Experience in consulting or client-facing technical roles
• Knowledge of specialized domains (healthcare NLP, legal AI, financial text analysis)
• Cloud platform expertise (AWS SageMaker, Google Cloud AI, Azure ML)
• Open-source contributions to major ML/NLP libraries

Notes

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