TL;DR

Senior Applied Scientist (AI): Designing and innovating partner communications AI systems with an accent on novel models, reasoning systems, and evaluation frameworks. Focus on personalizing high-stakes messaging, automating communication workflows, and surfacing real-time insights using modern NLP and Generative AI.

Location: Remote (US). U.S. employees may live in any of the 50 United States, with limited exceptions.

Salary: $152,900.00–$257,100.00 annually

Company

Zillow’s AI organization builds the intelligence that powers Zillow’s mission to make home a reality for more people — across buying, selling, renting, and financing.

What you will do

  • Lead the design of novel models, reasoning systems, and evaluation frameworks for AI communication systems.
  • Drive the science of communication intelligence and modeling strategy for intelligent partner tools.
  • Conduct applied research to design novel architectures and reasoning systems using cutting-edge approaches.
  • Define robust offline and online evaluation, including experiments, hallucination/error detection, and guardrails for GenAI.
  • Work with large, messy multi-channel data (call transcripts, SMS, email, CRM events) using big data tools.
  • Mentor scientists and engineers, partnering with product and engineering to drive business impact.

Requirements

  • 5+ years of experience applying advanced ML/AI to real-world problems.
  • Strong understanding of modern NLP, agentic, and LLM architectures/approaches, with practical experience in conversational or language-based systems.
  • Experience designing and analyzing experiments (A/B tests), model- or LLM-based evaluation, and tying scientific metrics to KPIs.
  • Proficiency in Python and modern ML stacks (PyTorch, Transformers), with a focus on clean code and rigorous testing.
  • Effective communication skills to translate complex modeling trade-offs for product and engineering partners.
  • Work authorization in the United States is required.

Nice to have

  • Experience building language systems for applications with specific conversational or structural constraints.
  • Experience with agentic LLM frameworks or tool-using assistants, including reinforcement learning or fine-tuning.
  • Doctoral degree in a STEM field and/or publications in machine learning or AI-related conferences.
  • Demonstrated technical leadership in mentoring and contributing to shared libraries or the broader AI community.

Culture & Benefits

  • Being part of Zillow, the most-visited real estate platform in the U.S.
  • Opportunity to reshape an industry and help people make home a reality.
  • Recognized among the best workplaces, including FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® in 2025.
  • Inclusive, innovative environment fostering employee growth.
  • Competitive base salary and eligibility for equity awards based on performance and location.