Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist

Full-time - Senior

Baltimore, MD

About the position

The Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist at Crisis Text Line will lead foundational ML/AI efforts to deliver high-quality research aimed at evidencing and optimizing the impact of the organization's services. This role involves using Natural Language Processing techniques and Machine Learning models to analyze a vast dataset of crisis conversations, generating insights that can improve mental health support practices and policies both in the US and globally. The position is integral to the Research & Impact team, which focuses on demonstrating the organization's impact and contributing solutions-oriented insights to the mental health field.

Responsibilities

• Lead Machine Learning to deliver new research insights for Crisis Text Line.
• Design and implement custom ML/deep learning/NLP pipelines to analyze conversational data.
• Contribute to the design and implementation of pipelines to evaluate model performance, accuracy, and reliability.
• Fully own model pipelines, from data collection and labeling to deployment.
• Perform statistical analyses in R or Python to contribute to the team's scientific output.
• Support or lead collaborative strategic research sprints adhering to rigorous research methods.
• Visualize data to support internal and external communication of research findings.
• Write research grants, briefs, memos, technical reports, and scientific manuscripts for peer-reviewed publications.
• Communicate and share model performance and impact with the team and organization.
• Implement industry standard documentation and coding protocols and practices on the Research and Impact team.

Requirements

• 6+ years of combined training and experience in computational social science, natural language processing, computer science, or related disciplines.
• Theoretical and practical understanding of ML/AI/NLP models for structured and unstructured data.
• Experience in programming languages for data manipulation, computational statistics, distributed computing, and ML workflows (Python, Spark, R, etc.).
• Ability to write clean and modular code maintained with version control tools.
• Extensive hands-on experience with multiple NLP techniques.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with large language models and transformer architectures.
• Skills in translating research results into non-technical insights for broad consumption.

Benefits

• 20 paid holidays including federal holidays and a holiday break from Dec 24 through January 1.
• Flexible paid time off including vacation, personal, and sick days.
• Medical, dental, and vision benefits for staff and family at no cost.
• 403B retirement plan with a 3% contribution by Crisis Text Line.
• 12 weeks paid parental leave after 6 months of employment.
• Student loan repayment after 2 years of continuous full-time service.
• Family support through a virtual childcare platform.
• Monthly stipends for mental health, internet service, and wellness.