Machine Learning Scientist

Dave Staszak | Lead Machine Learning Scientist

**About the Role**

The Machine Learning Scientist serves as a key member of the Advanced Technology Team and an active participant in maintaining Amii's reputation for scientific excellence and providing insight into their area of expertise.

The Machine Learning Scientist (MLS) uses their scientific knowledge and applied research experience to direct the research and development efforts of Amii Industry Partners and Clients. They bridge the gap between business opportunities and fundamental ML techniques, providing scientific oversight on technical projects. They advise clients on the scoping and definition of machine learning projects and coach companies through the iterative stages of the Machine Learning Process Lifecycle (MLPL). This includes making informed decisions about what the data requirements are, what modelling techniques should be tested, what technical resources need to be onboarded when more background research is required, and how success will be evaluated.

The MLS is also responsible for providing leadership and mentorship to junior team members. The Advanced Tech team sources unique talent to work on our industry partner’s projects, and the MLS is responsible for supporting the talent throughout the project delivery.

The role focuses on achieving excellence in three main accountabilities:

- **Industry Engagement** - Working with Amii clients to advance their ML projects and capabilities
- **Research - **Supporting the advancement of ML research

**Required Skills / Expertise**

**Key Responsibilities**:

- Define, design, and supervise the implementation of applied ML projects
- Supervise and mentor early career ML interns, residents, and associate MLSs on ML project work and career progression
- Advise industry and academic partners on machine learning projects
- Write technical reports and present on technical work
- Collaborate with clients, fellows, and team members on research papers
- Deliver on ML science requirements in a dedicated product stream

**Qualifications**:

- Graduate degree (Masters or PhD) in Machine Learning or an engineering/scientific field with experience in Machine Learning
- 2+ years of experience developing, training, and evaluating machine learning models in an industrial setting
- Publication record in peer-reviewed academic conferences or relevant journals
- Able to work with Jupyter notebooks and knowledge of version control systems. Comfortable with Python based ML and Deep Learning frameworks (e.g. Scikit-learn, Pytorch, Tensorflow, Keras, Transformers, JAX, and pandas).
- Ability to communicate technical topics to a non-technical audience
- General understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of a range of ML techniques across supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning
- Up-to-date knowledge within their particular specialties

**Nice to Have / Preferred**:

- Familiar with higher level trends in LLMs and open-source platforms
- Knowledge of and hands-on experience with utilizing, developing or tuning Large Language Models (LLM) and Generative AI

**Attributes and Expectations**:

- Critical and independent thought
- Collegiality and willingness to listen to feedback and support teammates
- Intellectual curiosity and the desire to learn new things, techniques, and technologies
- Able to identify gaps in knowledge and triage their own learning appropriately
- Flexibility and willingness to adapt, including working with disparate data, skill levels, and client needs
- Comfortable taking a leadership role with Amii clients, providing scientific expertise and mentorship for clients’ internal teams, Amii interns and associates
- Active participation in the research community: publishing research, serving as research reviewers for relevant journals, conferences and other related venues, supporting Amii students, speaking or teaching within their area of expertise
- Participation in the tech community events in Alberta and in Canada (e. g. CDL, Tech panels, Tech Talks, etc.)

**What you'll love about us**
- A professional yet casual work environment that encourages the growth and development of your skills.
- Participate in professional development activities
- Gain access to the Amii community and events
- A chance to learn from amazing teammates who support one another to succeed.
- Competitive compensation, including paid time off and flexible health benefits.
- A modern office located in downtown Edmonton, Alberta.

**About Amii**

One of Canada’s three main institutes for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, our world-renowned researchers drive fundamental and applied research at the University of Alberta (and other academic institutions), training some of the world’s top scientific talent. Our cross-functional teams work collaboratively with Alberta-based businesses and organizations to build AI capacity and translate scientific advancement into industr