Lead Research Scientist, Foundation Models and Agentic Systems - Optum AI
$110.2k/y-$188.8k/y
Optum3 days ago
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RemoteFull-timeSenior
Summary
Optum is seeking a Lead Research Scientist, Foundation Models and Agentic Systems to join their team in Annapolis, MD. The role involves leading research on pretraining and post-training of language models and developing agentic systems for healthcare applications.
About the Role
As a Lead Research Scientist, you will be responsible for designing and training domain-specialized LLMs and SLMs, exploring novel pretraining objectives, and developing RL/RLHF/RLAIF methods at production scale. You will also collaborate with product teams to translate research into deployed systems, publish findings in top-tier AI and ML venues, and ensure safety and fairness in AI applications.
About You
Required:
- PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Electrical Engineering, or a related quantitative field or equivalent experience.
- 7+ years of hands-on experience building and evaluating NLP models using deep learning frameworks (preferably PyTorch).
- 2+ years of experience with modern NLP / GenAI approaches, such as LLMs and SLMs.
- Demonstrated experience leading research projects.
Preferred:
- Experience building RLHF or RLAIF pipelines end-to-end.
- Experience with agent frameworks or multi-agent systems.
- Experience working with large-scale, real-world data.
- Experience mentoring junior researchers or engineers.
- Proven solid publication record in top-tier AI/ML/NLP venues.
Benefits
- Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision coverage.
- Incentive and recognition programs.
- Equity stock purchase and 401k contribution.
Optum
We’re evolving health care so everyone can have the opportunity to live their healthiest life. It’s why we put your unique needs at the heart of everything we do, making it easy and affordable to manage health and well-being. We are delivering the right care how and when it’s needed; providing support to make smarter and healthier choices; and making prescription services easier, while helping you save money along the way. It’s everything health care should be. Together, for better health. Optum is part of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH).
Annapolis, MD