Director, Agent Research

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 salary range for this position in San Francisco, New York, and Seattle is $268,000—$335,000 USD, depending on location, experience, and other factors. Benefits include comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage, retirement plans, a learning stipend, generous PTO, and potential additional benefits like a commuter stipend.

Note: Our policy requires a 90-day waiting period before reconsidering candidates for the same role to ensure a thorough evaluation process.

About Us:

At Scale, we believe the shift from traditional software to AI is transformative. Our mission is to accelerate this transition across industries, powering advanced LLMs, generative models, and computer vision solutions trusted by leading AI companies, government agencies, and enterprises. We promote an inclusive workplace and are committed to equal opportunity employment. For accommodations during the application process, contact We comply with the US Department of Labor's Pay Transparency and other relevant policies.