research
Posted Jun 12Lead Applied Scientist
at Prolific
London, United KingdomOn-site
Responsibilities
- 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.
Requirements
- 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.
- Apply classical ML, statistics, LLMs, and agentic techniques where they create practical value.
- Use modern AI tools to accelerate prototyping, experimentation, and iteration.
- PhD or MSc in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Machine Learning, or a related field.
- 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.
- experience partnering with product and engineering teams.
- This data is the cornerstone of developing more accurate, nuanced, and aligned AI systems.
- We believe that the next leap in AI capabilities won't 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.
Experience
- 3+ years of applied ML, AI research, or data science
Benefits
- (12 Month Fixed Term Contract - Maternity Cover)
- Join us to enjoy a competitive salary, benefits, and remote working within our impactful, mission-driven culture.
Additional details
- You will turn ambiguous problems into clear methodologies, benchmarks, models, and prototypes that product and engineering teams can adopt.
- 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.
- Ability to translate ambiguous product or customer problems into clear hypotheses, experiments, metrics, and reusable methodologies.
- We've 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.
- Links to more information on Prolific Benefits
- External Handbook Website Youtube