AI Research Engineer

At Dscout, we’re building the most flexible and powerful UX research platform on the market—trusted by the world’s top brands in finance (JP Morgan Chase, Intuit, Charles Schwab, PayPal), healthcare (Aya, Headspace), consumer goods (Keen, Verizon, Target, Northface), and tech (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Meta, Spotify, AirBnB). Our tools help teams deeply understand the humans behind their products, so they can build better ones. We are expanding our smart and driven team and would love for you to join us.

1. Dscout AI Training & Evals

Dscout AI Training & Evals builds human data and evals that show whether AI works for real people. For ten years Dscout has captured how people behave in real context, with consent and scientific rigor. AI Training & Evals points that engine at AI: consented human behavior and judgment, turned into the training data, evals, and benchmarks AI teams trust.

Capability has outrun trust. Models ace benchmarks and still surprise people in the wild. A benchmark says how capable a model is. It does not say whether the model works for the person using it, across weeks, in the mess of real life. That gap is where we work.

We serve AI researchers, the product builders who ship alongside them, and the research teams who partner with both. We are a new unit inside an established company: live customers, a mature platform (React, Elixir, Python, Swift, Kotlin; SOC 2 and HITRUST certified), a small senior team, and room to build. We work AI-native. Agents write code, evals gate changes, and we aim to do in months what used to take years.

A note from our Chief AI Officer & GM. The questions that matter most about AI are not answered by a bigger leaderboard. Does a model work for a real person across three weeks of real use? Does a rubric measure what it claims? Does an AI judge agree with the people it stands for? We have a decade of methods for studying people in real context, and we will publish our methods and benchmarks so the field can check our work. Join us to do rigorous science that matters.

Why this seat

2. Job Description

This is a research-first role focused on questions where the right rubric, benchmark, or method does not yet exist. You will find the gaps, propose bold directions, and take projects from first hypothesis through experiments and benchmark construction to publication. You will also build: the science has to run inside live customer programs.

What you will do

Rubrics and QA science

Long-horizon, real-user benchmarks

Human judgment as training and eval signal

New research directions

A good first year

How we will hire: a conversation with the Head of AI Research; a research talk on a project you led; a design exercise (how would you validate a rubric for a long-horizon task?); a conversation with the GM, forward deployed engineers, and delivery partners.

3. Requirements

What we care about most. A strong publication record helps. We care most about whether you can find the question that matters, design a rigorous way to answer it, and move fast enough that the answer is still useful.

What you bring

Compensation: $250-400K OTE + Equity. Includes a built-in bonus and equity program, publication freedom, a conference budget, flexible PTO, 15 holidays, 12 weeks of paid parental leave, 401k match, and an education stipend.

It doesn't stop there. When you join the Dscout team, you will get:

• A strong and competitive compensation package with a built-in bonus and equity program.

• An incredible and progressive benefits package (for both you and your dependents) to support work/life balance, including flexible PTO, 15 company holidays, 12 weeks of paid parental leave, 401k match, and much more.

• An education stipend to support your growth & development, and a remote work stipend.

• A company that is open and transparent with our team. You will know what is happening and why it matters.

This is an ideal list. If the role excites you and you do not check every box, we would still love to hear from you.

Of course, what is outlined above is an ideal set of expectations; however, business needs and other projects and tasks may shift, and additional tasks could be assigned at the discretion of your manager.

Dscout is an equal-opportunity employer that values diversity. We do not discriminate based on identity, including race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender identity and expression, age, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, veteran or military status, unfavorable discharge from military service, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, order of protection status, citizenship status, arrest record or expunged or sealed convictions, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state, or local law.

If you need reasonable accommodations for any part of the employment process, please email us at [email protected] with the nature of your request and your contact information. We'll do everything possible to ensure you're well-prepared for success during our interview process, while also upholding your privacy, including accommodating any special requests. Please note that only inquiries regarding requests for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.

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Dscout participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law.

Location Flexibility: Dscout is proud to support a remote-first workforce and enable employees to work from almost anywhere. At this time, however, we are unable to hire in the following locations: Montana, Hawaii, Alaska, and Washington DC.

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