Senior ML Research Scientist

Ladders; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

HSA with employer matching

FSA

401(k) retirement plan

11 paid holidays

Flexible PTO

Annual offsite events

Equipment stipend

Job summary

The Ladders is seeking a Senior ML Research Scientist to advance multimodal machine learning for radiology applications. You will translate clinical needs into ML objectives and collaborate with engineering to deploy models in production.

Applicants should have 4+ years in applied ML research, a MS or PhD in a quantitative field, and strong Python/PyTorch skills. Experience with CV/NLP and vision transformers is highly valued.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in applied ML research or engineering.
• MS, PhD, or equivalent in a relevant quantitative field.
• Strong Python and PyTorch expertise.
• Experience managing ML projects end‑to‑end.
• Proven track record in CV, NLP, or deep learning with hands-on experiments.
• Knowledge of modern vision techniques such as vision transformers or contrastive learning.
• Effective collaboration bridging technical and clinical conversations.

Responsibilities

• Own a multimodal ML workstream from ideation through deployment.
• Translate clinical needs into actionable ML objectives and evaluation strategies.
• Develop and assess advanced ML systems, including segmentation and detection.
• Integrate image and clinical data to improve radiology applications.
• Design evaluations beyond traditional metrics to ensure clinical relevance.
• Collaborate with engineering to align production with system requirements.
• Investigate and troubleshoot model failure modes affecting clinical performance.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

ML research

Experiment design

Collaboration

Education

MS/PhD in CS/ML

Tools

Vision transformers

NLP

Contrastive learning

Job description

For our client, we are seeking a Senior ML Research Scientist to join the team of a leader in the Hospitals & Medical Centers space.

This role will focus on advancing multimodal machine learning initiatives that support real-world radiology applications. You will translate clinical and product needs into rigorous ML objectives, develop and evaluate cutting-edge models, and partner closely with engineering to move solutions from research into production. The work will emphasize clinical relevance, strong experimentation, and improving model performance in settings where accuracy and practical impact matter most.

You will also help uncover failure modes, refine evaluation approaches beyond standard metrics, and strengthen the connection between image data and clinical context.

Location: Remote - US based candidates only, no visa sponsorship available

Compensation: $150,000 – $180,000 annually

Responsibilities

• Own a multimodal ML workstream from ideation through deployment and iteration
• Translate clinical and product needs into actionable ML objectives and evaluation strategies
• Develop and assess advanced ML systems, including segmentation and detection techniques
• Integrate image and clinical data to improve radiology-focused applications
• Design comprehensive evaluations that go beyond traditional metrics to ensure clinical relevance
• Collaborate with engineering to align model production with practical system requirements
• Investigate and troubleshoot model failure modes that affect clinical performance

Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in applied ML research or engineering; equivalent scope matters more than title
• MS, PhD, or equivalent experience in a relevant quantitative field such as Computer Science or Machine Learning
• Strong expertise in Python and PyTorch for model development and evaluation
• Experience managing significant ML projects across their full lifecycle
• Proven track record in computer vision, NLP, or deep learning with hands-on experiment design
• Knowledge of modern vision techniques such as vision transformers or contrastive learning
• Effective collaboration skills with the ability to bridge technical and clinical conversations

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and life insurance coverage
• Health savings accounts (HSA) with employer matching and flexible spending accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) retirement plan to support future savings
• 11 paid holidays for work-life balance
• Flexible Paid Time Off (PTO) policy to accommodate personal needs
• Annual company-wide offsite events to foster team cohesion
• Periodic team offsites for enhanced collaboration and planning
• Annual equipment stipend for your work setup

Our client is an equal opportunity employer. We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every qualification—your background could be exactly what this team needs.