Senior Data Scientist, Language Technology

This is a hybrid position which requires 8 days/month in the office. You can be based in our office in Washington D.C., London, The Hague, New Delhi, or Mumbai. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission as WRI is unable to sponsor any visa work sponsorship for this position. To be eligible for this position in US, you must be a resident of DC, Maryland or Virginia at the start of employment.

About the Program:

The Data Lab is World Resources Institute's core data innovation and product delivery unit. We are a growing team of engineers, product managers and data scientists on a mission to use advances in data and technology to improve lives, protect nature, and ensure just transitions. We do this by (1) supporting technical innovation and quantitative research across WRI's Programs and Country Offices and (2) designing, building, and maintaining digital products that turn data into action.

WRI seeks to use language technology to help our staff and users understand and act in a rapidly changing world. Examples of the impact we seek include accelerating research by automating time-consuming data cleaning tasks; shorting time-to-insight and improving experience through chat-based features on user-facing products; automating repetitive monitoring and reporting tasks.

Job Highlight:

Reporting to Global Director, Data Lab or their designee, you will integrate equity into your work. You will join the Data Labs and will be at the forefront using language technology-including large language models (LLMs) and traditional natural language processing (NLP) approaches-to address urgent challenges for people, nature, and climate. You will identify and lead technical experiments and work with product, engineering, and subject matter experts across the Institute to turn successful experiments into useful tools and user-facing products. You will be based in the Data Lab's Data Science team and collaborate with other teams across the Lab, including the Data Lab's Product Studio and Product and Engineering teams. You will directly manage a small team of data scientists and external consultants.

What will you do:

Design, Implementing and Evaluating Language Technology Experiments (60%):

• Evaluate user needs and explore use cases for language technology across WRI's research and product portfolios in collaboration with Data Lab's Product Studio
• Set the overall research and development strategy for language technology at WRI including LLMs and traditional NLP approaches in collaboration with the Data Lab's Global Director and/or their designee
• Identify and initiate a selection of experiments with internal partners from WRI's Programs and Country Offices
• Evaluate the results of the experiments and iterate to improve promising outcomes and learn from unsuccessful outcomes
• Manage, mentor, and advise data scientists using language technology across the Data Lab, helping them solve technical challenges and build capacity
• Serve as the external face of WRI's work on language technology, representing the organization at relevant sector and industry conferences

Advise on the Productization of Successful Experiments (30%):

• Communicate experimentation efforts to the Data Lab's Product and Engineering Teams and internal partners to help them understand the current state of the art and future trajectory for language technology
• Integrate feedback from Product teams into the design of experiments, solving issues identified via the productization process
• Analyze and recommend infrastructure design and strategic approaches for transitioning successful prototypes into scalable products, focusing on cost-effectiveness, environmental impact, privacy and security

Guide Responsible Use of Language Technology at WRI (10%):

• Complete quarterly updates to WRI's Generative AI guidance for staff in collaboration with WRI's Research Integrity team
• Contribute to scoping and strategy efforts with Data Lab's internal clients across Programs and Country Offices and external partners

What will you need:

• Education: You have a completed a bachelor's degree in statistics, computer science, data science, or linguistics. Relevant work experience in lieu of degree is accepted
• Experience: You have a minimum of 10 years of full-time relevant experience including at least 3 as team leader, principal investigator or equivalent
• Experience in the following is preferred:
• Strong understanding of machine learning, NLP, and LLM fundamentals including transformers
• Ability to conceptualize and execute projects that leverage language technology to help users in the real world
• Experience conducting designing and developing small applications using a range of coding languages, APIs, and frameworks for language technology
• Experience using LLM-focused methods including prompt engineering, tool calling, retrieval augmented generation, and fine-tuning to improve existing models
• Experience developing and implementing evaluations for models and applications across a range of NLP and LLM tasks
• Sound judgement about data governance and ethics
• Understanding of the cost structures and implications of deploying language technologies at scale
• Ability to think holistically about data product pipelines from initial data collection to UX design
• Experience working across data science, product, and engineering teams
• Languages: Verbal and Written proficiency in English required and additional fluency on a language spoken in WRI Offices encouraged (e.g. Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese)
• Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position is based. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization

Potential Salary: US salary range is between 139,000 and 167,000 USD. UK: 65 - 82 K GBP; NL: 80K - 101K EUR. If located in another country office, salary will be determined by local market conditions.

Salary is commensurate with experience and other compensable factors.

How to Apply: Please submit a resume with a required cover letter by the date of 17 January 2025. We may close for applications sooner if we receive a high volume of qualified applications.

We are unable to consider your application without a cover letter.

You must apply through the WRI Careers portal to be considered.

What we offer:

• Access to the WRI global network with the opportunity to exchange with and learn from passionate colleagues working at the cutting edge of their fields across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the US
• The chance to have an impact and to develop your career within a mission driven organization with access to varied learning and training opportunities.
• A workplace that strives to put diversity and inclusion at the heart of our work
• The opportunity to join and get involved in different working groups and affinity groups to shape the future of WRI
• Commitment to hybrid working model with flexible working hours
• Generous leave days that increase with tenure
• For US location: Medical Coverage, Dental Coverage, Vision Coverage, retirement plan access and employer contribution

About Us:

Founded in 1982, World Resources Institute (WRI) is an independent, nonprofit global research organization that turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity, and human well-being. We are working to address seven critical challenges that the world must overcome this decade to secure a sustainable future for people and the planet: climate change, energy, food, forests, water, sustainable cities, and the ocean. WRI has a global staff of over 1,800 people with work spanning 60 countries. We have offices in Africa, Brazil, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia and the United States, as well as a growing presence in other countries and regions.

The foundation of our work is delivering high-quality research, data, maps, and analysis to solve the world's greatest environment and international development challenges and improve people's lives. We work with leaders in government, business, and civil society to drive ambitious action and create change on the ground. Equally important, we bring together partners to develop breakthrough ideas and scale-up solutions for far-reaching, enduring impact.

Our mission and values:

WRI's mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth's environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations.

Our values are shared ideals that bind us together: Integrity, Innovation, Urgency, Independence and Respect.

Our culture:

WRI is committed to advancing gender and social equity for human well-being in our mission and applies this principle to our organizational and programmatic practices.

We are committed to providing equal opportunities in employment; we embrace all diversity and encourage women, the LGBTQ+ community, persons with disabilities, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous people to apply. Recognizing our strong commitment to gender equality, WRI has also been awarded EDGE certification.

Our team in Human Resources carefully reviews all applications.