Director of Research Engineering (NLP/IR)

Director of Research Engineering (NLP/IR)

Are you excited about the future of AI technology? Are you passionate about delivering value and maximizing the impact of R&D investment? Thomson Reuters Labs is seeking an experienced engineering leader to guide the delivery of cutting-edge AI solutions from concept to production.

At Thomson Reuters Labs, we experiment, we build, we deliver. We support the organization and our customers through applied research in informational retrieval and natural language processing. 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 AI innovation across Thomson Reuters’ Research Products, including Westlaw, Practical Law, and Checkpoint.

As Director of Engineering, you are both a technical leader and a people manager. Key responsibilities include the technical direction and architecture of production services, close partnership with technology leaders across the enterprise, and responsibility for the recruiting, career growth and mentorship of Labs engineers. Directors provide technical guidance on large, complex projects while consulting on strategic priorities for the business, in close collaboration with the research arm of Labs. This role also identifies and advocates for the adoption of industry best practices around well-managed software delivery.

About the Role
In this opportunity as Director of Research Engineering, you will:

• Foster a culture of innovation, growth, and continuous improvement
• Own the delivery of business-critical features for high value, customer facing applications
• Coach engineering leads and managers within the team
• Represent engineering in estimation, hiring, and planning activities
• Facilitate onboarding of new vendors and staff augmentation when required
• Drive strategy, vision, and execution in close collaboration with our science leaders and key partners across enterprise Product and Technology.

About You
You're a fit for the role of Director of Research Engineering if your background includes:

• A bachelor's degree in information technology, computer science, or the equivalent. Master’s or PhD in a relevant specialization preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years' software development experience, with at least 5 years of experience successfully managing software development teams in an agile environment
• Experience spearheading technical development in a cross-functional setting, with responsibility for ML applications; close partnership with Applied Scientists, R&D groups, or similar.
• A portfolio showcasing significant contributions to technology innovation
• Excellent project management, organization and communication skills
• Experience overseeing large-scale rollouts and infrastructure initiatives.
• Expertise in several of the following areas: robust python development, MLOps, containerization, cloud infrastructure (AWS and Azure), advanced search and recommendation technology, orchestration of ML pipelines for real-time inference, microservices architecture, model monitoring and governance.

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 profes