AI Research Scientist - Natural Language Processing

Placements24; Gqeberha; Hybrid; ZAR 900,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Research grants

Health insurance

Conference travel

Computing resources

Collaborative environment

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a brilliant AI Research Scientist specializing in NLP to join a cutting-edge AI research lab in Port Elizabeth. You will lead original NLP research, develop novel DL architectures, and collaborate with world-class researchers to push language technology forward.

This role offers access to substantial computational resources, opportunities to publish in leading venues, and a chance to mentor junior researchers while shaping next-generation models.

Qualifications

• PhD in CS/AI/Computational Linguistics with NLP focus.
• Strong publication track record in NLP conferences.
• Proficiency in DL for NLP (RNNs, LSTMs, Transformers, BERT, GPT).

Responsibilities

• Conduct original research in Natural Language Processing, including language modeling, translation, sentiment analysis, text generation, and information extraction.
• Develop and implement novel deep learning architectures for NLP tasks.
• Design experiments to evaluate new models and techniques.
• Analyze large text datasets to derive linguistic insights.
• Collaborate with researchers and engineers to integrate findings into products.
• Stay abreast of NLP/AI research trends.
• Publish findings in top AI conferences and journals.
• Contribute to open-source NLP libraries and tools.
• Mentor junior researchers and interns.

Skills

NLP research

Machine learning

Deep learning

Python

Transformers

Research collaboration

Education

PhD in Computer Science/AI/Computational Linguistics

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

HuggingFace Transformers

spaCy

NLTK

Job description

About the Role

Our client, a cutting-edge AI research lab, is seeking a brilliant and innovative AI Research Scientist with a specialization in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to join their team in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape. This role is focused on pushing the frontiers of NLP, developing novel algorithms and models for understanding, generating, and manipulating human language. You will be involved in high-impact research projects, contributing to the development of next-generation language technologies. The ideal candidate has a strong academic background, a passion for scientific discovery, and a proven ability to translate theoretical concepts into practical applications. This is an exciting opportunity to work alongside world-class researchers, access significant computational resources, and publish findings in leading AI conferences and journals. We are seeking creative problem-solvers who are eager to contribute to the advancement of AI in the field of language understanding.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct original research in Natural Language Processing, focusing on areas such as language modeling, machine translation, sentiment analysis, text generation, and information extraction.
• Develop and implement novel deep learning architectures and algorithms for NLP tasks.
• Design and execute experiments to evaluate the performance of new models and techniques.
• Analyze large text datasets, identify linguistic patterns, and derive insights.
• Collaborate with other researchers and engineers to integrate research findings into product development.
• Stay abreast of the latest research publications and trends in NLP and artificial intelligence.
• Publish research findings in top-tier AI conferences and journals.
• Contribute to the development of open-source NLP libraries and tools.
• Mentor junior researchers and interns.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Linguistics, or a related field with a strong focus on NLP.
• Demonstrated track record of research excellence in NLP, evidenced by publications in leading conferences (e.g., ACL, EMNLP, NeurIPS).
• Strong theoretical and practical understanding of deep learning techniques applied to NLP (e.g., RNNs, LSTMs, Transformers, BERT, GPT).
• Proficiency in Python and experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Experience with NLP libraries like Hugging Face Transformers, spaCy, or NLTK.
• Ability to work with large text corpora and perform complex data analysis.
• Excellent analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a research team.

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary and research grants.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Generous research and development budget.
• Opportunities to attend and present at international AI conferences.
• Access to powerful computing infrastructure.
• Collaborative and intellectually stimulating work environment in Port Elizabeth.
• Potential for significant impact on the future of AI and language technology.