Staff Research Scientist

At Guild, we believe talent is everywhere and that opportunity should be too. We continue to have our home and headquarters in Denver, but we have embraced a distributed model of working to reach the best talent in the United States. While some roles may require proximity to our Denver office, roles based outside of our Denver office can sit in any of the following 32 states: AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, NC, NH, NJ, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI and Washington D.C. Please only apply if you are able to live and work full-time in one of the states listed above. State locations and specifics are subject to change as our hiring requirements shift. 

If you are an Internal Candidate, please apply via our Internal Job Board. 

----

To thrive as a company and meet our impact goals, we must cultivate a culture of high-performance. We know managers are often the single-largest driver of employee satisfaction and growth, and our talent is our biggest asset. Because of that, we’ve identified consistent expectations for all of Guild’s people managers — helping you know what to expect from your experience here.

----

Staff Research Scientist

We are seeking a Staff Research Scientist to lead deep, foundational AI research and post-research implementation that powers our next-generation enterprise AI platform, Apollo. This is a discovery-driven position focused on building new AI capabilities, not feature iteration, spanning advanced platform capabilities including memory architectures, orchestration layers (intent, tone, personality), reinforcement learning systems, and comprehensive evaluation frameworks. You will drive full end-to-end enterprise adoption by translating cutting-edge research into production-ready systems in close partnership with engineering teams.

As a Staff Research Scientist, you will:

• Conduct advanced research across memory systems, orchestration frameworks, reinforcement learning, and evaluation layers, contributing approximately 20% of your time to deep exploration of novel problem spaces.
• Design novel AI architectures that support persistent memory, controllable agent behavior, and enterprise-grade reliability, applying first-principles thinking to produce scalable and production-ready solutions.
• Develop advanced evaluation frameworks that assess not only model performance, but also input integrity, output quality, safety, and alignment, going beyond traditional benchmarking.
• Explore and prototype new AI platform layers through continuous discovery and experimentation, maintaining a research cadence that drives long-term platform differentiation.
• Translate cutting-edge research into production-ready capabilities in partnership with engineering teams, bridging the gap between research and real-world deployment.
• Publish internal research memos, technical documentation, architectural proposals, external white papers, and external patents to advance both internal knowledge-sharing and external thought leadership.

What You'll Build:

• Advanced memory layers, including long-term, contextual, and structured memory systems
• Orchestration systems for intent, tone, and personality control
• Reinforcement learning pipelines for behavior optimization
• Input/output evaluation systems beyond traditional model benchmarking
• New foundational capabilities that enable scalable enterprise AI adoption

You are a strong fit for this role if you have:

• MS or PhD in Machine Learning, AI, or a related field
• Strong background in deep learning, reinforcement learning, and large language models
• Experience with model evaluation methodologies and safety frameworks
• Demonstrated ability to design novel AI systems from first principles
• A strong research-to-production mindset, with proven experience taking research from concept to deployed capability

Preferred Competencies

• Prior experience publishing research or contributing to external technical publications or patents

We are committed to equal pay for equal work and believe in compensation transparency. All salary ranges are standardized nationwide and will not vary by region. This role offers a competitive total compensation package, including a base salary of $220,000 - $260,000 and stock options. Compensation offered will be based on a combination of factors such as experience, competencies, and internal equity.

 

Posting Date:

This role will be open for a minimum of 3 days.

Guild partners