Staff Applied AI Researcher, Agentic Search

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Netherlands, +2 more countries.

📋 Description

• Create a search system tailored for agents that supports low-latency single-hop and intricate deep-search tasks involving iterative planning, querying, refinement, and reasoning.

• Develop ranking and retrieval models that are optimized for agent-centric workflows while adhering to real-world constraints.

• Integrate advancements from the research field into the search stack and ensure their deployment to production.

• Lead applied research initiatives and set the technical direction for retrieval and ranking systems.

• Design and enhance multi-stage retrieval architectures encompassing query understanding, rewriting, retrieval, reranking, and iterative retrieval.

• Spearhead experimentation with embedding research, sparse and hybrid retrieval techniques, reranking, and context compression.

• Create methods to ground LLMs in real-time web data at scale, utilizing trust, quality, and freshness signals.

• Collaborate with the evaluation team to establish metrics for agentic systems.

• Assess relevance, latency, and cost trade-offs while working with engineering to implement web-scale systems.

• Mentor researchers and engineers, elevating the team's technical standards.

• Take ownership of a specific component of the search stack within the first year, such as ranking or iterative retrieval.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 8 years of experience in applied AI, ML, or software engineering.

• Demonstrated success in deploying ML or AI systems to production at scale.

• Extensive experience with search, retrieval, ranking, or the development of RAG-based assistants.

• Profound understanding of modern deep learning, particularly transformers and embeddings.

• Experience with LLM-integrated or knowledge-intensive systems.

• Background in designing evaluation frameworks and metrics for ML systems.

• Strong programming proficiency in Python.

• Publications in top-tier conferences (ICLR, ICML, NeurIPS, AAAI, EMNLP, ACL).

• Capability to thrive in a fast-paced, product-focused environment with high ownership and autonomy.

• Preferred: Experience with agentic AI systems (agents, tool use, autonomous workflows).

• Preferred: Familiarity with RL post-training of LLMs or VLMs.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive salary and performance-based bonuses.

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.

• Flexible work hours and remote work options.

• Opportunities for professional growth and development.

• Collaborative and innovative work environment.