Senior Research Scientist

About Rakuten International  

Rakuten International is a division of Rakuten Group, Inc., a Japanese global technology leader in services that empower individuals, communities, businesses and society. Headquartered in San Mateo, California with more than 4,000 employees worldwide, the Rakuten International business portfolio includes market leaders in e-commerce, digital marketing, advertising, communications and entertainment. We create products and services that provide exceptional value by aligning members and the businesses that want to engage them in a shared community. 

Job Summary:

We areseekinganinnovativeanddedicatedresearchscientisttojoin RIT. As a Senior Research Scientist, youwillplay a pivotalroleinshapingthefutureof AI withinRakuten'sdiverseecosystem. Ourteamfocusesonenhancingin-houseLarge Language Models (LLMs) andseamlesslyintegratingthemintoRakuten'sservices, impactingmillionsofusersworldwide. We are a collaborativeandinnovativegroup, workingoncutting-edgeresearchandfostering a cultureofknowledgesharing. The idealcandidatewillhave a passionforproducinggroundbreakingresearch, mentoringjuniorresearchers, andcollaboratingwithteamsacrossRakutentodeliverimpactful AI solutions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Drive and execute cutting-edge research to advance the state-of-the-art in generative AI and large language models, contributing to areas including multimodal modeling, domain adaptation, and high-performance small language models.

• Own and pursue an independent research agenda, identifying impactful research problems, designing innovative solutions, and carrying out long-running projects.

• Design and conduct experiments, including experimental design, code development, evaluations, and results analysis, ensuring research outcomes are reusable and impactful. 

• Work collaboratively with globally distributed people in a range of roles, including researchers, engineers, product managers, designers, and other key product stakeholders to accomplish complex tasks that deliver value to our business.

• Stay up to date on research and product advances in AI to teach colleagues without research backgrounds state-of-the-art techniques in deep learning and generative AI.

• Mentor junior researchers and promote a healthy, cross-functional team environment.

• Contribute to publications, open-source projects, and knowledge-sharing efforts, enhancing the visibility and reach of research findings.

Qualifications:

• Deep understanding of the latest advancements in deep learning and generative AI, including LLMs, RAG, and AI agents and related areas. Familiarity with current research trends and open challenges in the field.

• Ability to translate complex business challenges into well-defined machine learning tasks, including the creation of novel datasets and evaluation metrics beyond existing benchmarks.

• Strong experimental design skills, with the ability to develop rigorous and objective evaluation methodologies to demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed solutions. Experience in analyzing experimental results and drawing meaningful conclusions.

• Expert-level coding skills in Python and PyTorch, with a strong understanding of software engineering principles. Ability to not only fine-tune existing models but also identify and implement improvements to model architectures and training frameworks. Experience in integrating cutting-edge research findings into in-house machine learning libraries.

• Extensive experience in developing and deploying large-scale machine learning models, including distributed training using frameworks such as FSDP and DeepSpeed.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively convey complex technical ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Ability to actively participate in project discussions, provide constructive feedback and technical guidance to junior members.

Minimum Requirements:

• Master’s in computer science, Machine Learning or related field with 5+ years of relevant industry experience. 

• Preferred PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning or related field 

• Proven experience in a research-focused role within industry, academia, or government institutions.

• Experience in developing software to process a large-scale dataset a distributed computing framework (e.g., Hadoop)

• Demonstrated ability to publish research findings in top-tier peer-reviewed conferences and journals.*

• Being reviewers for the top-tier conferences

• Proven leadership experience in managing and mentoring a team of 3+ researchers and engineers in research and development projects.