Data and Artificial Intelligence Research Engineer (DARE)

Design and build the core scientific libraries that enable our users to apply machine learning to solve the world’s most important materials science problems at an industrial scale.

About Citrine

At Citrine, we’re using generative Artificial Intelligence to enable our customers to usher in the next generation of sustainable, high-performing materials and chemicals.

We’re the leader in AI for materials and chemicals. Our no-code SaaS platform gives product developers, researchers, and engineers access to domain-specific data management and AI tools. Our models propose new ways to combine ingredients and processes that are most likely to outperform, helping companies discover and deploy innovative, sustainable, high-performing materials and chemicals up to 98% faster than traditional R&D approaches.

Citrine regularly wins awards for innovation and sustainability, earning spots on the CB Insights AI 100 list and the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the US. Our customers include leading organizations such as LyondellBasell, Braskem, Grace, Synthomer, and Solvay. We also collaborate with researchers from world-renowned institutions on cutting-edge research at the intersection of AI and the physical sciences. Our team is ambitious with our goals, passionate about our vision, driven by our sustainability mission, and eager to grow and learn from each other. We’re headquartered in California, with team members throughout North America and Europe. We’re growing quickly, and we’re looking for the best to join us!

About the Role

Data & AI Research Engineering is a uniquely interdisciplinary team working at the intersection of materials science, applied mathematics, and software engineering. We are responsible for researching, developing, testing, implementing, and maintaining scientific methods that form the core materials-aware machine learning functionality that powers the Citrine Platform. We collaborate extensively across the company — other teams rely on us throughout the product lifecycle to translate ideas to math to code and back again.

Responsibilities include:

- Writing and maintaining Scala ML code, with some additional Python

- Collaborate closely with other engineers, frequently reviewing code and best practices

- Mentor other developers

- Design high-performance, scalable systems

- Test & analyze the impact and performance of your software

- Work in a multi-functional team on features from concept to delivery

Example projects:

- Improve and maintain our core Scala libraries that enable our users to apply machine learning to solve the world’s most important materials science problems at an industrial scale

- Collaborate with our External Research and Development (ERD) team to write and publish papers related to the work we’re doing

- Improve the interpretability of machine learning models and develop tools to communicate that information to users

- Develop ways to efficiently explore the complex parameter spaces that characterize real-world materials synthesis problems

- Collaborate with our Product team to shape the future of our AI capabilities and support our customers’ unique use cases

- Develop new methods to quantify uncertainty in machine learning predictions

Skills and Experience

• 6+ years of professional experience or MS/PhD in mathematics, information science, or computer science
• Extensive knowledge of Scala in a production environment
• Proven history of implementing AI solutions for customers, with quantifiable results
• Experience solving scientific problems with computational techniques 
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts and design choices to any audience
• In-depth knowledge of how core ML algorithms work and their design (random forest, k-nearest neighbors, linear and logistic regression, backpropagation, etc.) 
• Python (Sklearn, Numpy, Pandas, Scipy, etc.)
• Advanced developer-testing skills: unit, integration, property-based testing, etc.
• Containers (Docker, ECS) for development, testing, and production

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with and/or a degree in Materials Science
• Prior projects where you took materials manufacturing data and built ML models to detect anomalies or quality defects
• Extensive knowledge of statistics
• Experience with LLMs such as the GPT models or BERT, etc
• Bonus points if you’ve taken one of these models and created a customer-facing product with it!
• Published papers that establish you as a domain expert in AI/ML, NLP, or scientific computing
• Pinecone (vector database)
• Relational databases (Advanced PostgreSQL is an asset)
• Close integration with various AWS services (S3, RDS, SQS, etc)

Equal Opportunity

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin.

Accommodations

Citrine is an inclusive work environment, and we are committed to ensuring equal opportunity in employment for qualified persons with disabilities. Please email us at [email protected] or inform your recruiter if you require any reasonable accommodations throughout the recruiting process.

Our Core Values

Citrine Informatics recognizes that its most valuable asset is its people. We have created our set of Core Values to encourage, support, and invest in our team as they work to innovate and support a more sustainable world. Our Core Values reflect our ongoing commitment to continuously invest in nurturing our talent and our people-first approach to conducting business.

- We take pride in and recognize the successes and growth of ourselves and our colleagues. We support each other in our growth.

- We prototype and collect data to make good decisions. We question that data and are constantly iterating to find the best solution.

- We are all owners of Citrine and make decisions like owners. We work autonomously with personal and organizational accountability. 

- We commit to building a diverse and inclusive community within Citrine and actively promote equity and belonging.

- We are tirelessly committed to creating value for our customers.

- We exist to help our customers accelerate the development of sustainable products that are critical to the future of both our planet and our industry.

Compensation and Pay Transparency 

At Citrine, we want your path to career growth to be transparent, straightforward, fair, and easily accessible -- starting with your application and interview process. The annual salary range listed below reflects the level we are considering for this position (please note that there may be unique situations where you may fall outside of this range). Where you fall within the range will depend on how your experience and skills align to our internal leveling system as we learn more about you throughout the interview process. 

$145,000 USD - $175,000 USD

*Range(s) listed are for full-time employees based in the United States only.

**Colorado only: disclosure above meets the requirement by sb19-085(8-5-20).

Our Benefits (for exempt, full-time employees based within the United States)

401k with matching up to 4%

Medical, vision, dental insurance (we pay 100% of your premium and 75% of your dependents)

Life and Disability insurance

FSA and HSA plans

Equity options within the company

12 weeks of paid parental leave

Flexible PTO on top of our 15 paid company holidays (includes your birthday!)

Free financial counseling 

$600 tech allowance

Monthly $75 phone reimbursement

$5,000 annual continuing educational allowance