Applied Methods
~The MetaResearch & ScienceApplied ML Scientist

Applied ML Scientist

Applied ML Scientists design and optimize machine learning systems that solve concrete business or scientific problems, moving beyond theoretical research to ship models in production environments. They work at the intersection of modeling and systems engineering, combining cutting-edge techniques like fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, and synthetic data generation with practical constraints around latency, cost, and real-world data distribution. These roles typically sit within dedicated applied research or product teams at AI-native companies, collaborating closely with engineers and domain experts to translate customer requirements or product challenges into effective training pipelines and evaluation frameworks.

$ titles --canonical
Applied AI/ML ScientistApplication Scientist
Open Jobs26
Companies Hiring16
$02

Skills

What companies are looking for in this role.

$ skills --core

Designing and implementing deep learning model architectures for specific problem domains

95%

Training, fine-tuning, and optimizing machine learning models at scale

94%

Building and deploying machine learning systems from research to production

93%

Designing evaluation metrics, benchmarks, and test sets for model performance assessment

88%

Analyzing and debugging machine learning system behavior in real-world applications

87%

Identifying emerging research directions and implementing state-of-the-art techniques

86%

Working with large-scale, multi-modal datasets including images, text, sensor data, and structured data

86%

Writing production-grade code with testing, documentation, and version control practices

85%

Performing empirical research to measure and understand real-world impact and behavior of AI systems

83%

Managing and integrating multiple heterogeneous data sources and modalities

80%

Optimizing model inference performance and computational efficiency for deployment constraints

79%

Monitoring and maintaining machine learning systems in production environments

78%

Designing and executing A/B tests and experimentation frameworks to validate model improvements

76%

Applying domain knowledge from specialized fields such as biology, physics, or autonomous systems

75%
$ skills --emerging

Developing generative models including language models, vision models, and diffusion-based approaches

92%

Implementing reinforcement learning techniques for model post-training and optimization

85%

Building agentic systems and multi-agent AI workflows for autonomous task execution

81%

Designing reward functions and training pipelines for language model alignment and behavior shaping

79%

Conducting red-teaming and adversarial evaluation to identify AI safety risks and vulnerabilities

72%
$ skills --soft

Collaborating with cross-functional teams including product managers, engineers, and domain experts

88%

Translating domain-specific requirements and user feedback into machine learning objectives

84%

Communicating complex technical findings and results to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

82%
$03

Technology

The tools and technologies that define this role.

$ tech --language
Pythonvery high
SQLmoderate
$ tech --framework
PyTorchhigh
TensorFlowhigh
JAXmoderate
$ tech --platform
AWSmoderate
Databricksmoderate
Hugging Facemoderate
$ tech --tool
Gitmoderate
LiDARmoderate
Kuberneteslow
$ tech --concept
Deep Neural Networksvery high
Generative AIvery high
Large Language Models (LLMs)very high
Computer Visionhigh
Distributed Traininghigh
Foundation Modelshigh
Model Evaluationhigh
Multi-modal Learninghigh
Natural Language Processing (NLP)high
Reinforcement Learninghigh
Reward Modelinghigh
Transformershigh
Vision Language Models (VLMs)high
3D Object Detectionmoderate
Autonomous Drivingmoderate
Continual Learningmoderate
Diffusion Modelsmoderate
Model Distillationmoderate
Preference Learningmoderate
Prompt Engineeringmoderate
Supervised Fine-tuning (SFT)moderate
Synthetic Data Generationmoderate
$04

Open Jobs

26 open Applied ML Scientist jobs across 16 companies.

PhysicsX1w
Senior Computer Vision Data Scientist
New York, United States·Research & Science
Waymo3w
2026 Summer Intern, PhD, Perception
Mountain View, California, USA·Research & Science
Glean1mo
Senior/Staff Applied Scientist
San Francisco Bay Area·Research & Science
Figma1mo
AI Applied Scientist
San Francisco, CA • New York, NY • United States·Research & Science
Waymo1mo
Senior Applied Research Scientist, Perception Semantics
Mountain View, CA USA; San Francisco, CA USA;·Research & Science
Waymo1mo
Research Scientist, Prediction & Planning
Mountain View, CA USA; New York, NY USA; San Francisco, CA USA;·Research & Science
Waymo1mo
Applied Research Scientist, Perception LLM/VLM (PhD, New Grad)
Mountain View, CA USA; San Francisco, CA USA;·Research & Science
Waymo1mo
Applied Research Scientist, 3D Object Detection (PhD New Grad)
Mountain View, CA USA; San Francisco, CA USA;·Research & Science
Waymo1mo
Senior Research Scientist, Foundation Model (LLM/VLM)
Mountain View, CA, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA·Research & Science
Waymo1mo
Senior Research Scientist, Foundation Model for Simulation
Mountain View, CA USA; San Francisco, CA USA·Research & Science
Isomorphic Labs1mo
Research Scientist (Applied LLMs), London
London·Research & Science
Recursion1mo
Senior Computational Biologist – Target ID
New York, New York; Salt Lake City, Utah·Research & Science
Anthropic1mo
Research Economist, Economic Research
San Francisco, CA·Research & Science
Recursion1mo
Associate Principal Computational Biologist, Neuroscience
New York, New York; Salt Lake City, Utah·Research & Science
Baseten1mo
Post-Training Applied Researcher
San Francisco·Research & Science
Cerebras Systems2mo
Applied Machine Learning Research Scientist
Sunnyvale CA or Toronto Canada·Research & Science
Cerebras Systems2mo
Applied AI/ML Scientist
UAE·Research & Science
Perplexity2mo
Member of Technical Staff (Data Scientist, Evals)
London·Research & Science
OpenAI3mo
Researcher, Frontier Biological and Chemical Risks
San Francisco·Research & Science
fal4mo
Research Scientist (Engineering)
Remote·Research & Science