Research Scientist
Research scientists in these roles formulate and execute high-impact research problems spanning multimodal AI, video understanding, generative modeling, and autonomous systems, often balancing fundamental innovation with product integration. They distinguish themselves by combining exceptional experimental judgment with the ability to identify and frame novel problems where existing benchmarks are insufficient, rather than simply executing well-defined research directions. These scientists typically work within interdisciplinary research teams at major AI labs and well-funded startups, collaborating closely with ML engineers to translate advances into production systems while maintaining the rigor needed for publication at top-tier venues.
Measured across 108 of 109 open postings.
This role is advertised at 4 levels, so a single figure for the role would describe none of them. Experience and pay are the midpoints for each level on its own.
| Level | Share | Median years | Median pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intern | 9%(10) | — | — |
| Mid | 35%(38) | 2.5 | $440k |
| Senior | 36%(39) | 3 | $400k |
| Staff / Principal | 11%(12) | — | — |
A dash means too few postings stated it to report a midpoint. Most companies do not publish a salary band, so pay is indicative rather than a market rate. 1 level with fewer than 10 open postings is not shown.
“Work on verifiable reinforcement learning, mid-training, and post-training of foundation models”
“Design, implement, and optimize reusable pipelines that combine AI capabilities with expert judgment”
“Design and evaluate architectural changes at meaningful model scales”
“Use Claude and our internal agent frameworks heavily in your own work — for experimental planning, protocol development, and data interpretation”
Requirements are a share of every open posting, so a role missing from this list is one where almost nobody asks. Work mode is different: many postings never say, so that figure counts only the ones that do. A posting stops being advertised when it is filled, cancelled or reorganised, so read the last figure as how long these stay on the market, not as time to hire.
Skills
What companies are looking for in this role.
Research experiment design
Large-scale model training
ML systems development
Model architecture design
Post-training and alignment methods
Research synthesis and insight
Research-to-production translation
Model behavior analysis
Training data curation
Statistical modeling and uncertainty
Frontier AI research
AI evaluation design
AI red teaming and safety testing
AI for scientific discovery
Agentic system research
AI safety and guardrails
Computer vision and perception
AI risk and safety evaluation
Research rigor and reproducibility
Research leadership and strategy
Technology
The tools and technologies that define this role.
Open Jobs
109 open Research Scientist jobs across 44 companies.
Other Research & Science roles
Engineers who build the systems, tools, and infrastructure that enable research.
Researchers and engineers doing core model development at AI labs: pre-training, mid- and post-training, reinforcement learning, training data, and model behaviour — the work most often titled "Member of Technical Staff" or "Researcher, Training".
Leaders who manage research teams, set research agendas, and guide scientific strategy.
Scientists who apply machine learning techniques to solve specific product or domain problems.
Scientists working in chemistry, biology, physics, pharmacology, and other physical or life sciences.