Applied Scientist, NLP/IR/GenAI

Join us in building Thomson Reuters' next-generation search that powers everything from direct user queries to cutting-edge GenAI applications across our product suite. We're conducting advanced research to apply modern, state-of-the-art techniques to deliver the most accurate and comprehensive search for legal and professional information.

About the role

As an Applied Scientist, you will: 

• Innovate & Deliver: Design, build, test, and deploy end-to-end AI search solutions using neural information retrieval techniques, semantic and hybrid search, and re-ranking approaches. Develop models for information retrieval, semantic search, document re-ranking, and query understanding, including dense retrieval architectures, semantic chunking models, embedding models, cross-encoders, SLM re-rankers, and transformer-based LLM-driven approaches. Work in collaboration with engineering to ensure well-managed software delivery and reliability at scale. 

• Evaluate & Optimize: Develop comprehensive data and evaluation strategies for both component-level and end-to-end quality, leveraging expert human annotation and synthetic data generation. Apply robust training and evaluation methodologies to optimize retrieval quality and latency. 

• Drive Technical Decisions: Independently determine appropriate retrieval architectures, indexing strategies, ranking models, data, and evaluation strategies for IR and NLP problems. Solve search relevance, ranking, and scalability challenges in a self-directed manner while contributing effectively as part of a multidisciplinary team. 

• Align & Communicate: Partner closely with Engineering and Product to translate complex challenges into scalable, production-ready solutions. Engage stakeholders to deeply understand business problems and domains, shaping objectives and goals that align AI search capabilities with product needs and business objectives. 

• Advance the Field: Publish at top venues (e.g., SIGIR, ECIR, NeurIPS, ACL, EMNLP, ICLR) and contribute to patents to keep our solutions cutting-edge and competitive. 
   

About You 

• PhD in Computer Science, AI, or a related field, or a Master's with equivalent research/industry experience. 

• 3+ years of hands-on experience building and deploying modern search or RAG systems with neural retrieval methods and deep learning models for NLP.  

• Strong background in information retrieval fundamentals, including indexing, query processing, ranking and relevance modelling. 

• Strong programming skills (e.g., Python) and experience with modern deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, DeepSpeed, Torchtune, LlamaFactory). 

• Proven ability to translate complex problems into innovative AI applications. 

• Publications at relevant venues such as SIGIR, ECIR, NeurIPS, ACL, EMNLP, ICLR. 
   

Technical Qualifications 

• Deep understanding of neural information retrieval fundamentals: BM25, hybrid search, dense retrieval (e.g., DPR, ColBERT), cross-encoders, bi-encoders, late interaction models 

• Hands-on experience designing and implementing search or RAG systems: vector databases, retrieval strategies, document chunking, metadata filtering, hybrid search, re-ranking, context optimization, and orchestration 

• Experience developing relevant datasets and evaluation frameworks 

• Solid understanding of ML and deep learning approaches for NLP 

• Solid understanding and experience with post-training of large language models and their application to retrieval systems 

 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Extensive prior work on search, question answering or RAG over large corpora and long documents, including experience with legal or enterprise search systems 

• Experience with multi-stage or agentic retrieval architectures and query understanding for complex information needs. 

• Experience building applications for the legal domain (e.g., legal search, case law retrieval, precedent finding, document review, document drafting). 

• Publications at relevant venues such as SIGIR, ECIR, NeurIPS, ACL, EMNLP, ICLR.
   

#LI-LP2

What’s in it For You?

• Hybrid Work Model: We’ve adopted a flexible hybrid working environment (2-3 days a week in the office depending on the role) for our office-based roles while delivering a seamless experience that is digitally and physically connected.

• Flexibility & Work-Life Balance: Flex My Way is a set of supportive workplace policies designed to help manage personal and professional responsibilities, whether caring for family, giving back to the community, or finding time to refresh and reset. This builds upon our flexible work arrangements, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year, empowering employees to achieve a better work-life balance.

• Career Development and Growth: By fostering a culture of continuous learning and skill development, we prepare our talent to tackle tomorrow’s challenges and deliver real-world solutions. Our Grow My Way programming and skills-first approach ensures you have the tools and knowledge to grow, lead, and thrive in an AI-enabled future.

• Industry Competitive Benefits: We offer comprehensive benefit plans to include flexible vacation, two company-wide Mental Health Days off, access to the Headspace app, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, employee incentive programs, and resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.

• Culture: Globally recognized, award-winning reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work-life balance, and more. We live by our values: Obsess over our Customers, Compete to Win, Challenge (Y)our Thinking, Act Fast / Learn Fast, and Stronger Together.

• Social Impact: Make an impact in your community with our Social Impact Institute. We offer employees two paid volunteer days off annually and opportunities to get involved with pro-bono consulting projects and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives.

• Making a Real-World Impact: We are one of the few companies globally that helps its customers pursue justice, truth, and transparency. Together, with the professionals and institutions we serve, we help uphold the rule of law, turn the wheels of commerce, catch bad actors, report the facts, and provide trusted, unbiased information to people all over the world.

In the United States, Thomson Reuters offers a comprehensive benefits package to our employees. Our benefit package includes market competitive health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance programs, as well as a competitive 401k plan with company match. In addition, Thomson Reuters offers market leading work life benefits with competitive vacation, sick and safe paid time off, paid holidays (including two company mental health days off), parental leave, sabbatical leave. These benefits meet or exceeds the requirements of paid time off in accordance with any applicable state or municipal laws. Finally, Thomson Reuters offers the following additional benefits: optional hospital, accident and sickness insurance paid 100% by the employee; optional life and AD&D insurance paid 100% by the employee; Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts; fitness reimbursement; access to Employee Assistance Program; Group Legal Identity Theft Protection benefit paid 100% by employee; access to 529 Plan; commuter benefits; Adoption & Surrogacy Assistance; Tuition Reimbursement; and access to Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

Thomson Reuters complies with local laws that require upfront disclosure of the expected pay range for a position. The base compensation range varies across locations. Eligible office location(s) for this role include one or more of the following: New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and/or Irvine, CA; McLean, VA; Washington, DC. The base compensation range for the role in any of those locations is $125,000 - $232,100. For any eligible US locations, unless otherwise noted, the base compensation range for this role is $108,500 - $201,500. This role may also be eligible for an Annual Bonus based on a combination of enterprise and individual performance. Base pay is positioned within the range based on several factors including an individual’s knowledge, skills and experience with consideration given to internal equity. Base pay is one part of a comprehensive Total Reward program which also includes flexible and supportive benefits and other wellbeing programs.

About Us

Thomson Reuters informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. We serve professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Our products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news.

We are powered by the talents of 26,000 employees across more than 70 countries, where everyone has a chance to contribute and grow professionally in flexible work environments. At a time when objectivity, accuracy, fairness, and transparency are under attack, we consider it our duty to pursue them. Sound exciting? Join us and help shape the industries that move society forward.

As a global business, we rely on the unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences of all employees to deliver on our business goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer providing a drug-free workplace.

Thomson Reuters makes reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities, including veterans with disabilities, and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law. If you reside in the United States and require an accommodation in the recruiting process, you may contact our Human Resources Department at [email protected]. Disability accommodations in the recruiting process may include things like a sign language interpreter, making interview rooms accessible, providing assistive technology, or other relevant accommodations. Please note this email is not intended for general recruitment questions and we will promptly respond to inquiries regarding accommodations. More information on requesting an accommodation here.

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More information about Thomson Reuters can be found on thomsonreuters.com.