STEM Fellow - Human Frontier Collective

Scale AI; United States; Remote; USD 83,000 - 131,000; Full time

Job summary

Scale AI, in collaboration with the Human Frontier Collective, offers a fully remote Fellow program in the United States as an independent contractor. Fellows engage in frontier AI research, design experiments, and co-author technical reports with Scale's research team.

Open to PhDs, postdocs, and professors across STEM fields, the role emphasizes collaboration, rigorous research, and applied AI work. Fellows typically commit 10–25 hours per week, with pay disclosed per project matching.

Qualifications

• PhDs, postdocs, and professors with STEM domain expertise.
• Background in AI/ML research and academia.
• Interest in applied AI research and collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate on high-impact AI/ML projects across domains.
• Co-author technical reports and research papers with Scale's research team.
• Contribute to designing, reviewing, and optimizing AI experiments and workflows.

Skills

Interdisciplinary expert

Research collaboration

Detail-oriented

Education

PhD

Postdoctoral researcher

Professor

Tools

PyTorch

Job description

The Human Frontier Collective (HFC)’s mission is to bring the world's best minds to shape the future of AI – because the future of AI depends not only on powerful models, but on the people who teach them to think.
We bring together researchers, academics, and domain leaders across 70+ fields – over 90% of members hold doctorates – to shape how frontier AI systems are built, evaluated, and governed. HFC members have since co-authored published work including SciPredict , PropensityBench , and Professional Reasoning Benchmark .

Why join the HFC

HFC centers on three core pillars: the network itself, participation in selected AI/ML projects, and opportunities to publish with our research team.

• Join a unique and exclusive expert network:You’ll become a part of an interdisciplinary community, consisting of over 90% doctorates and field leaders representing 70+ fields from the leading institutions. We’re a collective of top innovators and thought leaders committed to advancing frontier AI to power the world’s most important decisions.
• Participate in AI/ML projects: Beyond the collective network, you’ll be regularly invited to work on high-impact projects with Scale AI and its affiliated lab and platform: building AI safety and policy guardrails, helping models understand real-world deep learning workflows by designing, reviewing, and optimizing PyTorch models, evaluating complex ML code and AI-generated implementations for efficiency and correctness, and more.
• Co-author selected research publications: Collaborate with Scale’s research team to co-author technical reports and research papers—boosting your academic visibility and professional recognition.

Who should apply

• Background: PhDs, postdoctoral researchers, and professors with domain expertise in STEM fields such as Computer Science, Machine Learning, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Humanities, or other related disciplines.
• Professional Mindset: Detail-oriented, innovative thinker with a passion in applied AI research and a commitment to collaboration.

How it works

• Duration: This is a fully remote opportunity with no fixed end date; engagements continue as long as there's mutual interest. This is a 1099 independent contractor engagement.
• Work authorization: We do not sponsor visas for Fellows. To participate in the HFC Fellows program, you need to have or independently obtain full-time work authorization in the US.
• Community Network: Once you’ve received an invitation to join the HFC, you’ll also gain access to our newsletters, discussion channels, virtual sessions, IRL events, and much more.
• Projects Logistics:
• Project selection: You’ll regularly get matched to carefully selected projects from our partners. Depending on the partner, projects range from evaluating AI models to designing experiments, building RL environments, co-authoring research papers, and more.
• Flexible schedule: There's no minimum commitment – you decide whether to take on a project. Most fellows spend 10–25 hours per week, on a schedule they set themselves.
• Competitive pay: Project pay rates vary across platforms and depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to: projects, scope, skillset, and location. You’ll receive the pay information upon receiving project matching notifications.

Application process

• Apply: We review applications on a rolling basis.
• Interview: Candidates will get to discuss their research experience, professional background, and alignment with our mission to advance human-centered AI. Note: If we invited you directly, your invitation will say whether this step applies.
• Join the Collective: Successful candidates will receive an invitation to join the Human Frontier Collective Fellowship.

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PLEASE NOTE:Our policy requires a 90-day waiting period before reconsidering candidates for the same role. This allows us to ensure a fair and thorough evaluation of all applicants.

About Us:

At Scale, our mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions. Our products provide the high-quality data and full-stack technologies that power the world's leading models, and help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that deliver real impact. We work closely with industry leaders like Meta, Ernst & Young, Mayo Clinic, Time Inc., the Government of Qatar, and U.S. government agencies including the Army and Air Force. We are expanding our team to accelerate the development of AI applications.

We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status.

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application or recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at [e-mail]. Please see the United States Department of Labor's Know Your Rights poster for additional information.

We comply with the United States Department of Labor's Pay Transparency provision.

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