Manager, Applied Research, IR/NLP

Manager, Applied Research, IR/NLP 

Are you excited about working at the forefront of applied research in an industry setting? Thomson Reuters Labs in North America (Dallas, Minneapolis/St Paul or Toronto) is seeking a hands-on people manager to lead a team of high performing applied scientists, with a passion for solving problems using state-of-the-art Information Retrieval, Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning.  

What does Thomson Reuters Labs do? We experiment, we build, we deliver. We support the organization and our customers through applied research in informational retrieval, natural language processing and machine learning. We work closely with product and domain experts to identify compelling solutions at the intersection of user need and technical feasibility. Our team is responsible for designing the next generation of research technology for Legal and Tax Professionals in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. We own AI innovation for Thomson Reuters’ core research products, including Westlaw, Practical Law, and Checkpoint. 

The Labs Research Products team is seeking an exceptional manager to lead a cross-functional team with significant product scope. You will directly influence AI strategy and the feature roadmap through ideation and rapid prototyping in close collaboration with Product and Design counterparts. In addition to research and prototyping, this team also writes functional, scalable, and reliable software that runs in our products. The combined scope requires a highly efficient, agile approach to both research and development. Strong experimental design and evaluation are also essential given the complexity of the domain and the high stakes nature of the work our customers rely on our technology to perform. 

About the role 

In this opportunity as a Applied Research Manager, you will:

• Lead:  You will build a high performing team through servant leadership by setting clear expectations, modeling expected behaviors and actively coaching. You will be a proactive communicator who is excited to share their work and even more excited to highlight the accomplishments of their team. You will be articulate and compelling in describing ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences. 

• Deliver: With a sense of urgency and the desire to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, you will translate complex business problems into solutions with clearly defined outcomes and break down complex ideas into tractable incremental milestones. You will drive the end-to-end model development lifecycle partnering effectively with a collaborative cross-functional team. Our problems are complex; our solutions are right-sized. You will be accountable for timely, well-managed software deliverables. 

• Innovate: You will be empowered to try new approaches, learn new technologies, and take informed risks with good judgement. Furthermore, you will encourage and empower your team to do the same. You will foster innovative ideas to solve real-world challenges. You will help lead the way in growing the understanding and adoption of AI, NLP and IR across the enterprise.

• Have oversight on multiple projects and research/initiatives, or oversee one large (5+ scientists) project

• Perform hands on research and machine learning pipeline development

• Be involved in managing project portfolio/pipeline and prioritizing projects/allocate staff

• Represent projects or Labs research work towards customers

• Lead, manage, mentor and coach others

About you 

You are a fit for the role, Applied Research Manager, if you have: 

• PhD in a relevant discipline or Master’s plus a comparable level of experience 

• At least 5 years practical, relevant experience building NLP/IR/ML systems, from ideation to production 

• The willingness and ability to write clean, production-ready code (in python, mostly) 

• Experience coaching and developing a team 

• Demonstrable experience translating complex business problems into solutions with clearly defined scope and executing on that vision with demonstrated success 

Preferred qualifications 

• At least 8 years practical experience building IR, ML or NLP systems. Experience innovating with state-of-the-art research to solve applied, real-world problems successfully 

• Experience in a fast-paced, agile environment managing uncertainty and ambiguity 

• Outstanding communication and data-driven decision-making 

• Experience delivering minimum viable products in a large enterprise environment 

• Publications at workshops or conferences such as ACL, EMNLP, KDD, ICML, NeurIPS, SIGIR, or similar

What's in it For You?

You will join our inclusive culture of world-class talent, where we are committed to your personal and professional growth through:

Hybrid Work Model: We’ve adopted a flexible hybrid working environment (2-3 days a week in the office depending on the role) for our office-based roles while delivering a seamless experience that is digitally and physically connected

Wellbeing: Comprehensive benefit plans; flexible and supportive benefits for work-life balance: flexible vacation, two company-wide Mental Health Days Off; work from another location for up to a total of 8 weeks in a year, 4 of those weeks can be out of the country and the remaining in the country, Headspace app subscription; retirement, savings, tuition reimbursement, and employee incentive programs; resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.

Culture: Globally recognized and award-winning reputation for equality, diversity and inclusion, flexibility, work-life balance, and more.

Learning & Development: LinkedIn Learning access; internal Talent Marketplace with opportunities to work on projects cross-company; Ten Thousand Coffees Thomson Reuters café networking.

Social Impact: Ten employee-driven Business Resource Groups; two paid volunteer days annually; Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives for local and global impact.

Purpose Driven Work: We have a superpower that we’ve never talked about with as much pride as we should – we are one of the only companies on the planet that helps its customers pursue justice, truth and transparency. Together, with the professionals and institutions we serve, we help uphold the rule of law, turn the wheels of commerce, catch bad actors, report the facts, and provide trusted, unbiased information to people all over the world.

#LI-MW1

Do you want to be part of a team helping re-invent the way knowledge professionals work? How about a team that works every day to create a more transparent, just and inclusive future? At Thomson Reuters, we’ve been doing just that for almost 160 years. Our industry-leading products and services include highly specialized information-enabled software and tools for legal, tax, accounting and compliance professionals combined with the world’s most global news services – Reuters. We help these professionals do their jobs better, creating more time for them to focus on the things that matter most: advising, advocating, negotiating, governing and informing.

We are powered by the talents of 26,000 employees across more than 70 countries, where everyone has a chance to contribute and grow professionally in flexible work environments that celebrate diversity and inclusion. At a time when objectivity, accuracy, fairness and transparency are under attack, we consider it our duty to pursue them. Sound exciting? Join us and help shape the industries that move society forward. 

Accessibility 

As a global business, we rely on diversity of culture and thought to deliver on our goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer providing a drug-free workplace.

We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law.

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More information about Thomson Reuters can be found on https://thomsonreuters.com.