Lead Applied Scientist (Maternity Cover FTC)

(12 Month Fixed Term Contract - Maternity Cover)

Prolific is building the human data infrastructure that powers the next generation of AI systems. As frontier AI labs scale their use of human-generated data for training evaluation and alignment the way we measure quality performance and operational efficiency becomes increasingly important.

The Role

As an Applied Scientist you will design and prototype AI/ML methods that improve data quality scale human judgement and support robust AI evaluation workflows. You will work on applied problems such as quality modelling judgement aggregation evaluation design LLM-assisted review and reliability testing for AI systems.

Ideal for someone with deep scientific judgement strong applied ML skills and a practical bias toward methods that work in real customer and product contexts. This is not a pure research role or a production ML engineering role. You will turn ambiguous problems into clear methodologies benchmarks models and prototypes that product and engineering teams can adopt.

What Youll Be Doing

• Prototype AI/ML methods to improve human data quality judgement aggregation and AI evaluation workflows.
• Design experiments benchmarks and reliability tests to measure whether new methods improve quality efficiency or customer outcomes.
• Apply classical ML statistics LLMs and agentic techniques where they create practical value.
• Use modern AI tools to accelerate prototyping experimentation and iteration.
• Partner closely with product and engineering to translate scientific methods into scalable platform capabilities.
• Communicate technical assumptions trade-offs and recommendations clearly across technical and non-technical teams.

What We are looking for

• PhD or MSc in Computer Science Mathematics Statistics Machine Learning or a related field.
• 3 years of applied ML AI research or data science experience with demonstrated real-world impact.
• Experience with human-in-the-loop AI systems including RLHF annotation pipelines data quality modelling judgement aggregation benchmarks or AI evaluation.
• Fluency with modern LLM and agentic techniques such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) LLM-as-judge multi-agent workflows synthetic data generation and automated quality review.
• Strong Python skills and the ability to quickly build test and iterate on working prototypes.
• Good judgement on when to use simple statistical methods classical ML LLMs or agentic approaches.
• Ability to translate ambiguous product or customer problems into clear hypotheses experiments metrics and reusable methodologies.
• Strong cross-functional communication and experience partnering with product and engineering teams.

Why Prolific is a great place to work

Weve built a unique platform that connects researchers and companies with a global pool of participants enabling the collection of high-quality ethically sourced human behavioural data and feedback. This data is the cornerstone of developing more accurate nuanced and aligned AI systems.

We believe that the next leap in AI capabilities wont come solely from scaling existing models but from integrating diverse human perspectives and behaviours into AI development. By providing this crucial human data infrastructure Prolific is positioning itself at the forefront of the next wave of AI innovation one that reflects the breadth and the best of humanity.

Working for us will place you at the forefront of AI innovation providing access to our unique human data platform and opportunities for groundbreaking research. Join us to enjoy a competitive salary benefits and remote working within our impactful mission-driven culture.

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