Principal Applied Scientist, Generative AI

What you'll do

• Define research agendas for LLM post-training, reward modeling, and agentic-system evaluation; lead and mentor applied scientists.
• Drive high-impact projects from product vision through experiments, models, and data, translating generative AI research into product improvements.
• Communicate scientific strategy and results to executives and cross-functional partners.

What they ask for

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field, or a master's degree with equivalent research experience.
• Hands-on expertise in LLMs or foundation models, including post-training, reward modeling, or LLM evaluation.
• Track record leading scientists or engineers while remaining technically hands-on, or leading a research group with a strong publication record.
• Ability to scope and solve ambiguous problems, influence technical direction across teams, and proficiency in Python and ML frameworks such as PyTorch.

Nice to have

• Publications at top venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, or EMNLP; experience applying LLMs in consumer-facing products at scale.
• Experience with agentic AI systems and evaluation, or background in reinforcement learning or preference learning.

Pay

$195,600.00 - $312,400.00 annually (base salary); $185,800.00 - $296,800.00 annually (base salary)

Tools

LLMs, foundation models, SFT, DPO, RLHF, RFT/GRPO, Python, PyTorch

AI focus

Leads research and development for generative and agentic AI, including LLM post-training, reward modeling, and evaluation for Zillow’s AI assistant.