AI Research Scientist - Reinforcement Learning

Snowflake is about empowering enterprises to achieve their full potential — and people too. With a culture that’s all in on impact, innovation, and collaboration, Snowflake is the sweet spot for building big, moving fast, and taking technology — and careers — to the next level.

Snowflake delivers a unified platform for secure development and deployment of LLMs and ML models. Snowflake AI and ML capabilities allow you to create generative AI applications with fully managed and enterprise-grade LLMs while providing full governance.

We are seeking a talented and motivated Researcher specializing in Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Large Language Models (LLMs) to join our cutting-edge AI research team. The ideal candidate will possess a strong academic foundation, practical experience with state-of-the-art algorithms for real-world applications, and expertise in data creation and curation for novel and challenging problem domains. This role offers an exciting opportunity to work at the forefront of AI, contributing to projects that push the boundaries of what’s possible with RL and LLMs.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

- Conduct advanced research in reinforcement learning, focusing on areas such as RLHF (Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback), DPO (direct preference optimization), proximal policy optimization (PPO), and multi-agent systems.

- Develop custom solutions for a variety of real-world practical applications and challenging problem domains.

- Develop advanced reasoning models to enhance logical and contextual understanding, with applications in tasks such as code generation and structured decision-making.

- Develop and fine-tune large language models, exploring post-training optimization techniques to enhance performance and efficiency.

- Familiar with post-training data creation from either synthetic data processing or human annotated data pipelines.

- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate research findings into real-world applications and products.

- Publish high-quality research papers in top-tier conferences and journals (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL).

- Stay up-to-date with the latest developments in AI, RL, and LLMs, identifying opportunities for innovation and improvement.

QUALIFICATIONS:

- PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or a closely related field (or equivalent research experience).

- Deep understanding of reinforcement learning algorithms, including recent advances like RLHF, DPO, PPO, and multi-agent systems.

- Strong expertise in large language models, including fine-tuning and post-training optimization techniques.

- Proven track record of publishing in top-tier AI conferences or journals.

- Proficiency in programming languages and frameworks commonly used in AI research, such as Python, TensorFlow, or PyTorch.

- Excellent problem-solving skills, with a strong analytical and mathematical foundation.

- Ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced research environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

- Experience with large-scale training and deployment of RL or LLM models.

- Have customer solution experience for different vertical domains, like health and finance.

- Possess customer solution experience across diverse vertical domains, including healthcare and finance.

- Familiarity with distributed computing and efficient training paradigms.

- Experience developing reasoning models, such as those for mathematical problem-solving, code generation, or structured decision-making tasks.

- Background in human-computer interaction or related interdisciplinary fields.

Join us in shaping the future of AI through innovative research and collaboration. We look forward to hearing from you!

The estimated base salary range for this role is $200,000 - $287,500

Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Snowflake’s bonus and equity plan.

The successful candidate’s starting salary will be determined based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors such as skills, experience, and geographic location. This role is also eligible for a competitive benefits https://careers.snowflake.com/us/en/benefits package that includes: medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance; 401(k) retirement plan; flexible spending & health savings account; at least 12 paid holidays; paid time off; parental leave; employee assistance program; and other company benefits.

Every Snowflake employee is expected to follow the company’s confidentiality and security standards for handling sensitive data. Snowflake employees must abide by the company’s data security plan as an essential part of their duties. It is every employee's duty to keep customer information secure and confidential.

Snowflake is growing fast, and we’re scaling our team to help enable and accelerate our growth. We are looking for people who share our values, challenge ordinary thinking, and push the pace of innovation while building a future for themselves and Snowflake.

How do you want to make your impact?

For jobs located in the United States, please visit the job posting on the Snowflake Careers Site for salary and benefits information: careers.snowflake.com http://careers.snowflake.com