Remote Research Scientist jobs

About the Research Scientist role

What the work looks like

• Read the current literature, form a hypothesis and design experiments that can actually confirm or refute it.
• Implement models or methods, run experiments on compute clusters or in the lab, and analyze the results.
• Write up findings as internal reports, patents or papers for peer-reviewed conferences and journals.
• Present results to research peers in reading groups and reviews, and defend the methodology under questioning.
• Work with engineering teams to move a promising method from prototype toward a product.

What employers ask for

• PhD in a relevant field, usually expected
• Publication record in peer-reviewed venues
• Python with PyTorch or JAX, for ML research
• Experimental design and statistical analysis
• Strong mathematics in the research area
• Scientific writing and presentation

Doing this job remotely

Computational research can be done remotely given access to compute and data, and collaboration by shared documents and paper drafts is long established. Laboratory research cannot, since experiments need the bench, so remote roles there are limited to computational and analysis work. Research also benefits from unplanned discussion, which is why some research groups prefer people near a hub.

Where it comes from and where it leads

Research scientists typically come from a PhD program, often followed by a postdoctoral position or research internships in industry. They advance to senior and principal research scientist or research manager, and some move into applied engineering roles or back to academia.