Machine Learning Research Manager
Lead and mentor a team of applied and clinical researchers as a player-coach. Guide ML research in NLP, LLMs, and clinical applications for radiology, translating ideas into production systems while partnering with clinicians and engineers. Requires MS/PhD and 6+ years applied ML research experience.
About the job
What You’ll Be Doing
- Directly manage and mentor a small team of applied and clinical researchers, helping them grow in scope, judgment, execution, and communication
- Drive research productivity by clarifying priorities, unblocking work, and creating a high-trust, high-accountability team environment
- Stay close to the technical work as a player-coach by guiding problem framing, experimental design, evaluation strategy, and tradeoff decisions across multiple research efforts
- Partner closely with radiologists, clinical experts, engineers, and product leaders to identify the highest-leverage research opportunities and translate them into production-scale systems
- Help the team build and evaluate advanced NLP and reasoning systems that work with clinical text, diagnostic criteria, reporting workflows, and other healthcare data
- Create strong cross-functional working rhythms with engineering, product, and clinical partners so research outputs are practical, trustworthy, and deployable
- Raise the bar on research quality, reproducibility, and communication across the team
- Stay current on relevant machine learning advances and help the team thoughtfully integrate new methods when they materially improve customer and clinical outcomes
Who We’re Looking For
- MS or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computational Linguistics, Biomedical Informatics, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience
- 6+ years of applied ML research experience, with a track record of taking work from idea to production impact
- Prior people management experience, or clear evidence of operating as a de facto team lead for multi-person research efforts, with strong coaching and prioritization skills
- Strong background in NLP and modern deep learning, especially transformer-based systems and large language models
- Experience applying ML to hard real-world problems where ambiguity, data quality, and operational constraints matter
- Strong hands-on experience with modern ML tooling such as PyTorch and common model development workflows
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate closely with domain experts and cross-functional stakeholders, especially in environments where trust, iteration speed, and communication quality matter
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to guide senior researchers while also aligning non-technical partners around research direction and tradeoffs
Nice to Have
- Experience working in healthcare, clinical AI, biomedical ML, or other regulated, privacy-sensitive environments
- Experience with radiology, clinical documentation, medical terminology, or clinician-facing workflows
- Experience deploying LLM or NLP systems in production settings
- Experience contributing to research culture through mentorship, technical standards, or organizational leadership
- Familiarity with cloud-based ML workflows and modern research infrastructure
- Preferably eager to collaborate and work in our new San Francisco office and shape the culture and tone of that space
Skills
Machine Learning, NLP, Deep Learning, Transformers, LLMs, PyTorch, Research Management, People Management, Healthcare Ai, Clinical Ai
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