Staff Machine Learning Scientist

Job Description
The AI Agents org is revolutionizing the chatbot and voice assistance landscape with Gen3, a cutting-edge AI Agent system that is pushing the boundaries of conversational AI. Gen3 is not your typical chatbot; it's a goal-oriented, dynamic, and truly conversational system capable of reasoning, planning, and adapting to user needs in real-time. By leveraging a multi-agent architecture and advanced language models, Gen3 delivers personalized and engaging user experiences, moving beyond scripted interactions to handle complex tasks and "off-script" inquiries with ease.

We are delighted to be hiring a Staff Machine Learning Scientist for the AI Agent product at Zendesk. This is an exciting opportunity for a senior-level leader to not only bridge the gap between cutting-edge ML research and real-world impact but to actively define that bridge. You will play a pivotal role in shaping our product vision through bottom-up innovation, rapid prototyping, and the establishment of best practices. You'll have the freedom to discover and champion new product ideas, mentor junior scientists, and work alongside a talented cross-functional team to build the world's most advanced AI agents in CX.

Key Responsibilities

• Pioneer Product Vision and Innovation: You will partner closely with product managers and other stakeholders to discover and define the product roadmap. You'll champion bottom-up innovation, bringing forward novel ideas and research to influence the team's strategic direction.
• Lead Rapid Prototyping: You will own the full research and development lifecycle from end-to-end, translating business requirements into technical designs. This includes the rapid implementation and testing of hypotheses using suitable tools and technologies to quickly validate solutions for future production.
• Standardize Research and Evaluation: You will establish and evangelize research standards and best practices for the evaluation of our AI agents, ensuring consistency and rigor in how we measure success.
• Mentor and Enable the Team: You will act as a force multiplier, mentoring other scientists and engineers, and enabling them to tackle complex challenges. You will also help non-technical stakeholders, like Product Managers, better understand the technical landscape.
• Drive End-to-End Projects: You will own complex, designated product areas, guiding the team through the full research project lifecycle, from initial ideation to implementation, experimentation, and reporting.
• Stay at the Forefront of Research: You will keep up with the latest advancements in the NLP and ML fields, introducing new concepts and literature as potential solutions to our business problems.
• Collaborate and Peer Review: You will regularly discuss and peer-review research ideas with your colleagues, contributing to a culture of shared learning and continuous improvement.

Who You Are

• A Proven Innovator: You have a strong track record of Machine Learning or NLP research, ideally in a senior industry role. You are known for not just solving problems, but for identifying and framing them.
• Expert in Deep Learning: You have deep knowledge of building deep learning neural network architectures, with a focus on NLP. You can implement complex ideas from research literature into robust proof-of-concept models.
• Experienced with Generative AI: You have significant experience with LLMs, Prompt Engineering, and AI Agent Context Management. Experience with conversational AI and voice technologies, including text-to-speech (TTS) and speech-to-speech (STS), is a huge bonus.
• A Collaborative Leader: You have a positive, proactive, and team-oriented mindset. You are passionate about your craft and are keen to take part in product discussions. You care deeply about helping others succeed and have great communication skills.
• The Right Qualifications: You hold a degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field.

How We Measure Success

• Strategic Impact: Your work directly influences and aligns with the overall product roadmap and strategic goals.
• Mentorship and Team Growth: Your ability to mentor and enable others demonstrably improves the team's capabilities and output.
• Bottom-Up Innovation: Your ability to identify new opportunities and champion these ideas leads to tangible improvements in our products.
• Research Standardization: The research evaluation frameworks you establish are widely adopted and improve the quality and rigor of our work.
• Collaboration: Your effectiveness in collaborating with product managers, engineers, designers, and other stakeholders helps bridge technical and non-technical gaps.

The Interview Process
We are excited to learn more about you, so we want to be transparent about what you can expect from our interview process:

• Initial Call with Talent Team - 15 mins
• Interview with one member of the Hiring Team - 45 minutes
• Take-home technical/research challenge
• A technical interview with two of our scientists to talk more in-depth about your technical experience and answer any questions you might have - 1 hour
• Final interview with 2 Engineering Managers - 45 minutes

About Zendesk
Zendesk builds software for better customer relationships. It empowers organizations to improve customer engagement and better understand their customers. Zendesk products are easy to use and implement. They give organizations the flexibility to move quickly, focus on innovation, and scale with their growth.

More than 100,000 paid customer accounts in over 150 countries and territories use Zendesk products. Based in San Francisco, Zendesk has operations in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America.

Interested in knowing what we do in the community? Check out the Zendesk Neighbor Foundation to learn more about how we engage with, and provide support to, our local communities.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we're proud of our ongoing efforts to foster diversity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

By submitting your application, you agree that Zendesk may collect your personal data for recruiting, global organization planning, and related purposes. Zendesk's Candidate Privacy Notice explains what personal information Zendesk may process, where Zendesk may process your personal information, its purposes for processing your personal information, and the rights you can exercise over Zendesk's use of your personal information.

Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.

The Intelligent Heart Of Customer Experience
Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we're proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to with your specific accommodation request.