Senior Applied AI Researcher, Vice President
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Summary
A senior AI researcher at BlackRock in Budapest who owns end-to-end AI solutions: prototyping LLM-powered systems (RAG pipelines, agent-style workflows), building evaluation frameworks and benchmarks, and mentoring junior data scientists. Core stack: Python, SQL, Git, Azure, and Snowflake.
- End-to-end AI solution ownership
- Partnership with product managers and business stakeholders for problem translation
- Independent planning and execution of research and experimentation
- Design of AI solutions with system-level perspective
- Design and prototyping of LLM-powered solutions including RAG-based systems and agent-like workflows
- Definition of system behavior, scope, and constraints
- Staying current with emerging AI techniques
- Building and maintaining evaluation frameworks for AI system performance
- Development of quantitative and qualitative metrics, benchmarks, and testing approaches
- Analysis of existing solutions for performance enhancements
- Collaboration with data scientists, engineers, and product teams
- Communication of methods, assumptions, results, and limitations to diverse audiences
- Support for engineering teams during implementation
- Mentorship of junior data scientists
- Contribution within Agile / SCRUM development environment
- Application of good engineering hygiene in research and prototype code
- 6+ years of experience in data science, applied machine learning, or related role
- Strong mathematical, statistical, and machine learning foundations
- Proven ability to select, apply, and critically evaluate ML models and algorithms
- Strong Python skills for analysis, modelling, experimentation, and prototyping
- Strong SQL skills for data exploration, transformation, and analytical workflows
- Excellent analytical thinking and problem-structuring abilities
- Experience using Git for version control and collaborative development
- Strong English communication skills, both written and verbal
- Hands-on experience with LLMs including prompt/system design and real-world applications
- Experience with RAG systems including retrieval strategies, chunking, evaluation, and performance tuning
- Experience designing or contributing to agent-style AI systems and familiarity with agent evaluation, guardrails, and reliability testing
- ML modeling experience beyond exploratory analysis
- Understanding of software engineering best practices including testing strategies and CI/CD concepts
- Experience working in Azure or similar cloud environments
- Familiarity with Snowflake and optionally Snowflake AI as part of a modern data stack
- Experience collaborating closely with domain experts
- Financial domain exposure
- Salary range for Hungary: 20100000 - 32400000 HUF
- Annual discretionary bonus
- Healthcare benefits
- Leave benefits
- Retirement benefits
- Retirement investment and tools
- Access to education reimbursement
- Comprehensive resources for physical health and emotional well-being
- Family support programs
- Flexible Time Off (FTO)
- Hybrid work model with at least 4 days in office per week and 1 day remote