Director, Applied Research

Thomson Reuters•New York, NY

4d•$198,200 - $368,000

About The Position

Thomson Reuters Labs is seeking an experienced applied science leader with a strong product mindset to lead a high-performing team developing AI solutions for tax, audit, and accounting professionals. TR Labs works with product and domain experts to identify and deliver solutions at the intersection of customer needs and technical feasibility. The role leads applied research and development for agentic AI capabilities supporting tax and accounting professionals worldwide, creating new workflows to address industry challenges. The position is part of the R&D organization supporting Thomson Reuters’ tax product portfolio, including Checkpoint, CoCounsel Tax, and OneSource. It collaborates closely with product engineering, product management, domain experts, and business stakeholders to bring AI capabilities into production, particularly in settings where accuracy, verification, and customer trust are essential. The successful candidate combines deep AI and machine learning expertise with product orientation and a record of commercial impact. They translate emerging AI research into practical capabilities for complex, highly regulated domains; bring hands-on experience building production-grade LLM and agentic AI systems; and guide scientific and architectural decisions across a team. The role spans strategy and execution, including setting research direction, influencing product roadmaps, engaging domain experts, evaluating trade-offs, and supporting teams delivering production-ready solutions.

Requirements

PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a closely related field; or a Master's degree with equivalent depth, a strong scientific background, and a relevant publication record.
10+ years of hands-on industry experience building AI and machine learning systems for commercial applications; research-only experience is not sufficient.
Recent, direct hands-on experience developing LLM-based and agentic AI systems for production, non-trivial use cases.
5+ years of experience managing and developing applied science, machine learning, or AI research teams.
Demonstrated success in product-facing or customer-facing roles, with measurable business and customer impact as the primary measure of success.
Technical depth in AI and machine learning sufficient to challenge assumptions, expand upon team ideas, guide technical decisions, and establish research direction.
Strong expertise in information retrieval and natural language processing, particularly in complex vertical domains.
Experience evaluating AI agents and language-model-based systems, including approaches involving verifiable rewards, synthetic data generation, and rigorous quality measurement.
Strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to work effectively with applied scientists, engineers, product leaders, domain experts, and senior business stakeholders.
Passion for developing people, building strong teams, and creating an inclusive, high-performing culture.

Nice To Haves

Experience with taxonomy induction, document understanding, agentic search, knowledge graphs, neuro-symbolic AI, or comparable approaches for complex knowledge-intensive workflows.
Relevant publication record, including publications at ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, NeurIPS, ICLR, SIGIR, KDD, or equivalent venues.
Experience building AI solutions for tax, legal, audit, accounting, or other highly regulated and knowledge-intensive domains.
Demonstrated track record of growth and leadership at top-tier technology companies, high-growth startups, or similarly demanding environments.

Responsibilities

Lead and develop a high-performing applied science team focused on agentic AI solutions for tax and accounting professionals.
Drive the design, development, and delivery of AI features that reimagine customer workflows in high-stakes, accuracy-critical settings.
Set technical direction for applied research initiatives, balancing scientific rigor, customer value, product feasibility, and delivery timelines.
Partner with product engineering teams to transition research innovations into scalable, reliable, production-ready capabilities.
Advise Labs leadership, product leadership, and business stakeholders on long-term AI strategy, external partnerships, and capability roadmaps.
Influence product strategy using technical expertise and insights from product usage data, quality metrics, evaluations, and customer feedback.
Develop approaches for LLM-based systems, agentic workflows, information retrieval, document understanding, knowledge representation, and AI evaluation.
Ensure AI systems have appropriate accuracy, verification, observability, safety, and quality controls for professional tax and accounting use cases.
Engage tax, audit, accounting, and other subject-matter experts in concept development, design workshops, experimentation, and solution validation.
Continuously improve ways of working across R&D and product engineering in a fast-paced, tightly embedded delivery environment.
Foster innovation, rigor, collaboration, technical excellence, and continuous learning across the team.
Represent TR Labs and the broader tax technology organization in internal technical forums, cross-functional initiatives, and relevant external research communities.
Develop people, build strong teams, and create an inclusive, high-performing culture.

Benefits

Flexible work arrangements, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year.
Flexible vacation and paid time off, including sick and safe time and paid holidays.
Two company-wide Mental Health Days off annually.
Access to the Headspace app and Employee Assistance Program.
Retirement savings plan with company match.
Tuition reimbursement.
Employee incentive programs and an annual bonus may be available based on enterprise and individual performance.
Health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance.
Parental leave and sabbatical leave.
Fitness reimbursement and resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.
Two paid volunteer days off annually and opportunities for pro-bono consulting and ESG initiatives.
Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts.
Optional hospital, accident, sickness, life, and AD&D insurance.
Group Legal Identity Theft Protection benefit.
Access to a 529 Plan.
Commuter benefits.
Adoption and Surrogacy Assistance.
Employee Stock Purchase Plan.