Remote Lead AI Research Scientist - Natural Language Processing

Placements24; South Africa; Remote; ZAR 1,200,000 - 2,400,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote work with flexible timezone

Performance-based bonuses

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Professional development opportunities

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Lead AI Research Scientist to head our NLP initiatives from a fully remote setup. You will guide a team of researchers and engineers, shape the NLP roadmap, and translate breakthroughs into production-ready features across sentiment analysis, translation, summarization, and conversational AI.

You will publish findings, stay at the forefront of NLP and ML advances, and foster an inclusive remote research culture with strong collaboration across time zones.

Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence or a related field with NLP focus.
• 7+ years NLP research experience, with at least 3 years in leadership.
• Proven track record deploying advanced NLP models (Transformers, LLMs, BERT, GPT).
• Experience with cloud platforms for model training and deployment.
• Strong communication and collaboration in distributed teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead R&D of state-of-the-art NLP models and algorithms.
• Mentor a team of AI researchers and engineers.
• Define the NLP research roadmap aligned with the company's strategy.
• Oversee design, implementation, and evaluation of NLP experiments.
• Collaborate with product and engineering to productionize breakthroughs.
• Publish research findings in top AI conferences and journals.
• Stay updated on NLP, ML, and DL advances.
• Develop and maintain best practices for AI R&D in remote settings.

Skills

Leadership

NLP expertise

Transformers

Python

Cloud exposure

Education

PhD in CS/AI

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

JAX

Hugging Face

spaCy

NLTK

Job description

About the Role As a pioneering force in artificial intelligence, Our client is seeking an exceptional Lead AI Research Scientist to spearhead our Natural Language Processing (NLP) initiatives from the comfort of your home office. This fully remote position is ideal for a visionary leader who thrives on pushing the boundaries of machine learning and deep learning for language understanding and generation. You will lead a talented team of researchers and engineers in developing novel NLP models and applications that will redefine how users interact with information. Your work will directly impact the future of our AI-driven products, focusing on advanced areas such as sentiment analysis, machine translation, text summarization, and conversational AI. We are committed to fostering a collaborative, innovative, and inclusive remote work environment where cutting-edge research can flourish. This role demands a blend of deep technical expertise, strategic thinking, and strong leadership capabilities to guide research from conception to production.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the research and development of state-of-the-art NLP models and algorithms.
• Manage and mentor a team of AI researchers and engineers, fostering a culture of innovation and high performance.
• Define the research roadmap for NLP, aligning with the company's strategic objectives.
• Oversee the design, implementation, and evaluation of experiments for NLP tasks.
• Collaborate closely with product management and engineering teams to translate research breakthroughs into production-ready features.
• Publish research findings in top-tier AI conferences and journals.
• Stay abreast of the latest advancements in NLP, machine learning, and deep learning.
• Develop and maintain best practices for AI research and development in a remote setting.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field, with a strong focus on Natural Language Processing.
• Minimum of 7 years of research experience in NLP, with at least 3 years in a leadership or management role.
• Proven track record of developing and deploying advanced NLP models (e.g., Transformers, LLMs, BERT, GPT).
• Extensive experience with deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or JAX.
• Proficiency in programming languages like Python, along with relevant libraries (e.g., Hugging Face Transformers, spaCy, NLTK).
• Demonstrated ability to lead and inspire a remote research team.
• Strong understanding of machine learning principles, statistical modeling, and algorithm design.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, particularly in a distributed team environment.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) for model training and deployment is a plus.

Benefits

• This is a fully remote position offering a highly competitive salary, performance-based bonuses, and comprehensive benefits package including health, dental, and vision insurance.
• You will have the flexibility to work from anywhere within your local timezone, coupled with generous paid time off and professional development opportunities.
• Our client provides a cutting-edge remote work infrastructure and supports continuous learning through online courses and conference attendance.
• We believe in empowering our remote team members with the resources and autonomy needed to excel.
• Join a globally distributed team at the forefront of AI innovation.