Senior ML Research Scientist — Frontier Lab (Applied AI)

Software Engineering Institute | Carnegie Mellon University; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 160,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University seeks a Senior Machine Learning Research Scientist for the Frontier Lab to lead applied research, prototype development, and evaluation for DoD and government missions. You will shape research directions while staying hands-on in development and delivery across research and engineering tasks.

You will operate with autonomy, interact with customers and stakeholders, mentor staff, and collaborate across focus areas including

Qualifications

• BS in CS/EE/Stats or related field with 10 years of relevant experience; OR MS with 8 years; OR PhD with 5 years of relevant experience.
• Deep expertise in Frontier Lab‑aligned areas (agentic systems, LLM reliability/evaluation, CV evaluation, robustness/assurance, TEVV pipelines, multimodal learning, edge ML).
• Strong engineering capability – can build and maintain high‑quality prototypes, evaluation infrastructure, and repeatable experimentation workflows.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to represent technical work credibly to senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical workstreams and coordinate multi‑person execution.

Responsibilities

• Mission-context execution: understand users, workflows, constraints and outcomes to ground technical decisions.
• Technical leadership: define tasking, milestones, and ensure delivery quality.
• Applied research and prototyping: design studies, build prototypes, produce evidence-backed insights.
• Evaluation, assurance, and evidence: establish evaluation strategies and test pipelines for robustness and trust.
• Customer-facing technical ownership: serve as primary technical interface; translate goals into measurable outcomes.
• Mentorship and talent development: mentor junior staff and raise research rigor.
• Travel to SEI offices and sponsor sites as needed (approx. 10% travel).

Skills

Agentic AI

LLM evaluation

Robustness

Multimodal learning

Edge ML

Technical leadership

Communication

Education

BS in CS/EE/Stats or related field

MS in CS/EE/Stats or related field

PhD with relevant experience

Job description

Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University seeks a Senior Machine Learning Research Scientist for the Frontier Lab to lead applied research, prototype development, and evaluation for DoD and government missions. You will shape research directions while staying hands-on in development and delivery across research and engineering tasks.

You will operate with autonomy, interact with customers and stakeholders, mentor staff, and collaborate across focus areas including