Applied Researcher II (AI Foundations, LLM Core and Agentic AI)
About the role
The role of an Applied Researcher II at Capital One involves working with a cross-functional team to deliver AI-powered products that enhance customer interactions. This includes leveraging a wide range of technologies and methodologies to uncover insights from large datasets and building foundational AI models.
Responsibilities
- Partner with a cross-functional team of data scientists, software engineers, machine learning engineers, and product managers to develop AI products that improve customer experiences.
- Leverage technologies such as PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, Lightning, and vector databases to analyze and interpret complex data.
- Create and refine AI foundation models throughout the development lifecycle, from initial design to deployment.
- Conduct high-impact applied research to advance AI capabilities and integrate them into new customer experiences.
- Communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders to align on business goals and objectives.
Requirements
- Currently pursuing or recently obtained a PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields, or a Master's degree with 4 years of relevant experience.
- Innovative and creative, with a strong interest in applying cutting-edge AI technologies to real-world problems.
- Able to lead and mentor a team while maintaining a deep technical understanding of AI foundations and methodologies.
- Experience with large-scale deep learning models, including optimization techniques, model sparsification, quantization, and parallel processing.
- Proven track record of delivering AI models at scale and demonstrating expertise in areas like model finetuning, transfer learning, and reinforcement learning.
Qualifications
- PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, or related fields.
- LLM with a focus on NLP, or a Master's degree with 5 years of industrial NLP research experience.
- Multiple publications on pre-training of large language models, SSL techniques, and model pre-training optimization.
- Experience training large language models from scratch (10B+ parameters, 500B+ tokens).
- Papers in deep learning theory, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, NeurIPS, ICML, or ICLR.
- Experience with training optimization, self-supervised learning, robustness, explainability, and RLHF.
- Experience with compiler design and deep knowledge of deep learning algorithms and optimizers.
- Experience with model finetuning, supervised finetuning, instruction tuning, dialogue finetuning, and parameter tuning.
- Knowledge of transfer learning, model adaptation, and model guidance.
- Experience deploying large language models in production environments.
Skills
- Strong programming skills in Python, C++, or other relevant languages.
- Experience with cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to translate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to work independently and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
Benefits
Capital One offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes:
- Health insurance options
- Retirement savings plans
- Flexible spending accounts
- Employee assistance programs
- Professional development opportunities
- Work-life balance initiatives
Pay
The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.
Cambridge, MA: $262,500 - $299,600 for Applied Researcher II
Schedule
This role is full-time.