Senior Lead Applied AI Scientist (Production ML & LLMs)

Lumen; Madison (WI); Remote; USD 176,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Life insurance

Voluntary lifestyle benefits

Job summary

Lumen is seeking highly technical Senior Lead Applied AI Scientists to design, build, deploy, and improve AI solutions at scale. You will collaborate with business, product, engineering, and tech leaders to translate opportunities into measurable impact.

Ideal candidates combine deep AI expertise with strong software engineering, experimentation, and product delivery skills, mentoring teams while delivering production-grade AI systems.

Qualifications

• Seven plus years of experience in applied AI, machine learning, or data science, including production AI deployments.
• Proven track record of delivering AI solutions that drive measurable business outcomes.
• Deep expertise in machine learning, statistics, experimentation, predictive analytics, and modern AI techniques.
• Hands‑on experience building LLM, RAG, agentic, and machine learning solutions.
• Strong experience with AI evaluation, model performance optimization, responsible AI, and production monitoring.
• Proficiency in Python and modern AI/ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, MLflow, or similar technologies.
• Experience with MLOps, LLMOps, cloud AI platforms, APIs, and software engineering best practices.
• Strong product mindset, problem‑solving skills, and ability to communicate complex concepts with technical and business stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize AI solutions from concept through production deployment.
• Partner with business and product teams to identify opportunities, define success metrics, and validate value through rapid experimentation.
• Develop advanced AI systems leveraging machine learning, generative AI, retrieval, predictive modeling, and agentic architectures.
• Define evaluation frameworks and continuously improve quality, reliability, safety, performance, and cost.
• Partner with Engineering to deliver scalable, production‑ready solutions using MLOps and LLMOps best practices.
• Contribute reusable frameworks, evaluation assets, and technical standards that accelerate AI adoption across the enterprise.
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and guidance on complex AI initiatives.

Skills

Seven plus years

Applied AI

Python

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Hugging Face

MLflow

MLOps

LLMOps

Cloud AI platforms

Product mindset

Education

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

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Hugging Face

MLflow

Job description

Lumen is seeking highly technical Senior Lead Applied AI Scientists to design, build, deploy, and improve AI solutions at scale. You will collaborate with business, product, engineering, and tech leaders to translate opportunities into measurable impact.

Ideal candidates combine deep AI expertise with strong software engineering, experimentation, and product delivery skills, mentoring teams while delivering production-grade AI systems.