Director, Agent Research (San Francisco)

Join to apply for the Director, Agent Research role at Scale AI

Join to apply for the Director, Agent Research role at Scale AI

About The Role
As Director of Agents Research you will lead teams focused on developing LLM-based autonomous systems for real-world applications. In this hands-on technical leadership role, you'll oversee research initiatives and collaborate with engineering teams to bring innovations to production.

About The Role
As Director of Agents Research you will lead teams focused on developing LLM-based autonomous systems for real-world applications. In this hands-on technical leadership role, you'll oversee research initiatives and collaborate with engineering teams to bring innovations to production.
You'll play a key role in advancing our hybrid model-in-the-loop system, which currently processes tens of millions of data points for frontier labs and industry leaders monthly, with plans to scale to billions. Your expertise will drive R&D strategy across critical areas including:

• Agent architecture development and scaffolding
• Data collection workflows and management
• Performance evaluation frameworks
• Testing environments and benchmarking
• Browser and SWE agent development
  

Leveraging Scale's unique position as a leader in frontier data, you'll drive the development of autonomous agents capable of handling complex tasks, ensuring our solutions meet high performance and scalability standards.
Responsibilities

• Lead cutting-edge research in AI agent architectures and autonomous systems development.
• Design scalable evaluation frameworks to measure and optimize agent performance across billions of tasks.
• Transform research breakthroughs into production-ready ML solutions through close collaboration with engineering.
• Drive thought leadership in AI agent research through publications and industry engagement.
• Build and mentor a high-performing research team focused on pushing technological boundaries.
  

Qualifications

• PhD in computer science, ML, or AI or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years leading technical research teams.
• Strong publication record in top ML conferences.
• Deep expertise in large-scale model training and deployment.
• Successful track record building and managing high-performing research teams.
• Advanced proficiency in PyTorch, TensorFlow, or Jax.
  

Compensation packages at Scale for eligible roles include base salary, equity, and benefits. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position, determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, interview performance, and relevant education or training. Scale employees in eligible roles are also granted equity based compensation, subject to Board of Director approval. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process, and confirm whether the hired role will be eligible for equity grant. You’ll also receive benefits including, but not limited to: Comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, a learning and development stipend, and generous PTO. Additionally, this role may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend.
Please reference the job posting's subtitle for where this position will be located. For pay transparency purposes, the base salary range for this full-time position in the locations of San Francisco, New York, Seattle is:
$268,000—$335,000 USD
PLEASE NOTE: Our policy requires a 90-day waiting period before reconsidering candidates for the same role. This allows us to ensure a fair and thorough evaluation of all applicants.
About Us:
At Scale, we believe that the transition from traditional software to AI is one of the most important shifts of our time. Our mission is to make that happen faster across every industry, and our team is transforming how organizations build and deploy AI. Our products power the world's most advanced LLMs, generative models, and computer vision models. We are trusted by generative AI companies such as OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft, government agencies like the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, and enterprises including GM and Accenture. We are expanding our team to accelerate the development of AI applications.
We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status.
We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application or recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at Please see the United States Department of Labor's Know Your Rights poster for additional information.
We comply with the United States Department of Labor's Pay Transparency provision .
PLEASE NOTE: We collect, retain and use personal data for our professional business purposes, including notifying you of job opportunities that may be of interest and sharing with our affiliates. We limit the personal data we collect to that which we believe is appropriate and necessary to manage applicants’ needs, provide our services, and comply with applicable laws. Any information we collect in connection with your application will be treated in accordance with our internal policies and programs designed to protect personal data. Please see our privacy policy for additional information.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Director

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Research, Analyst, and Information Technology

• Industries

  Software Development

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