We are looking for an exceptional Research Scientist to develop next-generation AI technologies, focusing on user representation learning, semantic understanding, and generative AI applications.
You will conduct applied research that advances representation learning, multimodal understanding, and transformer-based modeling while working closely with engineering teams to translate research into production systems. The ideal candidate combines strong scientific thinking with practical engineering skills and enjoys solving challenging problems using large-scale real-world data.
Responsibilities:Conduct Applied AI Research
- Research and develop novel machine learning algorithms for user representation learning, semantic embeddings, and foundation-model applications.
- Design, prototype, evaluate, and deploy transformer-based generative AI solutions from research through deployment.
- Develop scalable representation learning techniques using transformers, contrastive learning, self-supervised learning, and retrieval-based architectures.
- Investigate multimodal learning approaches that jointly model structured, behavioral, textual, and other heterogeneous data.
Build Large-Scale AI Systems
- Train and evaluate models using large-scale behavioral, transactional, social, temporal, and content datasets.
- Design embedding models, retrieval systems, vector databases, and semantic search pipelines.
- Collaborate with platform and infrastructure engineers to deploy production-quality AI models.
- Design rigorous offline and online evaluation methodologies and establish reproducible benchmarking pipelines.
Collaborate Across Teams
- Work closely with product, engineering, and domain experts to identify impactful research opportunities.
- Translate ambiguous business problems into measurable machine learning objectives.
- Communicate research findings clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Contribute to the long-term AI research roadmap and technical strategy.
Education
- PhD (completed or near completion) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, or a related quantitative discipline.
- Equivalent industrial research experience will also be considered.
Technical Expertise
Strong background in one or more of the following:
- Deep Learning
- Representation Learning
- Transformer architectures
- Generative AI Models
- Contrastive Learning
- Self-supervised Learning
- Embedding Models
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
- Vector Search
- Semantic Search
- Information Retrieval
Experience with:
- Python
- PyTorch (preferred) or JAX
- Large-scale distributed data processing
- Model experimentation and evaluation
- End-to-end machine learning system development
- GPU Computing
- NVIDIA GPU architecture and CUDA programming fundamentals
- Multi-GPU and distributed training using PyTorch Distributed
- Mixed precision training (FP16/BF16/FP8)
- Profiling and optimizing GPU utilization, communication overhead, and training throughput
Research Mindset
Candidates should demonstrate:
- Strong scientific rigor
- Ability to establish meaningful baselines before pursuing more complex models
- Well-designed experiments and reproducible evaluations
- Data-driven decision making
- Intellectual curiosity and independent problem solving
- Combine research excellence with strong engineering execution.
- Enjoy working with ambiguous, real-world business problems.
- Can independently drive projects from idea to production.
- Thrive in highly collaborative, cross-functional environments.
- Have excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Are passionate about building practical generative AI systems that create measurable business impact.
- 5 years of industrial or applied research experience preferred (including internships).
Skills Required
- PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, Statistics, or related quantitative discipline (or equivalent industrial research experience)
- Strong background in deep learning, representation learning, transformer architectures, generative models, contrastive and self-supervised learning, embedding models, RAG, semantic search, and information retrieval
- Experience with Python
- Experience with PyTorch
- Experience with JAX
- Experience with large-scale distributed data processing
- Experience with model experimentation, evaluation, and end-to-end ML system development
- GPU computing experience, including NVIDIA GPU architecture and CUDA fundamentals
- Experience with multi-GPU and distributed training (e.g., PyTorch Distributed)
- Experience with mixed precision training (FP16/BF16/FP8) and profiling/optimizing GPU utilization
- Strong scientific rigor, reproducible experiments, and data-driven decision making
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- 5 years of industrial or applied research experience (including internships)
What We Do
Predactiv is a data and technology company specializing in transforming data assets through a proprietary AI-driven platform. The Predactiv Data Platform features real-time consumer insights, analytics, audience creation, and activation. The core of Predactiv’s platform is its proprietary real-time global digital behavioral dataset. Predactiv collects and analyzes vast amounts of online data to help businesses understand consumer intent and optimize marketing strategies. The Predactiv Data Platform emerged from the success of ShareThis, a leading data and programmatic advertising provider, recognized for pioneering the use of AI in audience and insight creation. ShareThis is now a Predactiv Company. Predactiv, and ShareThis, a Predactiv Company, are based in Palo Alto, CA.









