Senior Director, Applied Research

Thomson Reuters • New York, NY

14d

About The Position

Senior Director, Applied Research Want to work at the forefront of applied research in an industry setting? Like the sound of a role that lets you put your research into practice and shape the future of AI-driven products? Thomson Reuters Labs might be the place for you. Thomson Reuters Labs is seeking an experienced applied scientist with a strong product mindset to lead a high-performing team developing transformative solutions for tax, audit, and accounting professionals. What does TR Labs do? We experiment, we build, we deliver. We support the organization and our customers through applied research and innovation. We work closely with product and domain experts to identify compelling solutions at the intersection of customer needs and technical feasibility. We partner closely with product engineering teams to deliver real value in high-stakes settings, where accuracy and verifiability are essential. Our team is designing the next generation of agentic AI for tax and accounting professionals around the globe. This is an opportunity to create entirely new workflows addressing fundamental challenges in the industry. Thomson Reuters has all the ingredients — from annotated tax law to robust tax engines and end-to-end solutions for data management, filing, audit, and compliance. Come join the R&D team behind Thomson Reuters' portfolio of tax products, including Checkpoint, CoCounsel Tax, and OneSource. About the Role This role carries significant scope to influence product strategy and shape the next generation of AI capabilities for Thomson Reuters' flagship tax products.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field — or a Master's degree plus comparable experience.
• Demonstrable, hands-on experience building AI/ML systems for commercial applications.
• Demonstrable management experience, including coaching and developing high-performing teams.
• Experience designing and implementing solutions with large language models.
• Experience innovating state-of-the-art solutions to solve challenging real-world problems.
• Outstanding communication and analytical skills.

Nice To Haves

• Experience building solutions for information retrieval in complex vertical domains, such as taxonomy induction, document understanding, agentic search, knowledge graphs, and/or neuro-symbolic approaches.
• Experience with AI agent evaluation, language model training with verifiable rewards, and/or synthetic data generation.
• Relevant publications at ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, NeurIPS, ICLR, SIGIR, KDD, or similar venues.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop AI features that reimagine customer workflows.
• Inform business and Labs leadership on long-term AI strategy and partnerships.
• Influence product strategy with high-value insights around usage, quality, and customer feedback, as well as deep technical knowledge and experience building successful AI/ML products.
• Continuously improve ways of working with cross-functional teams in a fast-paced, tightly embedded R&D cycle.
• Engage subject matter experts in concept development and design workshops.
• Inspire a team of highly talented individuals, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning.

Benefits

• Flexibility & Work-Life Balance: Flex My Way is a set of supportive workplace policies designed to help manage personal and professional responsibilities, whether caring for family, giving back to the community, or finding time to refresh and reset. This builds upon our flexible work arrangements, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year, empowering employees to achieve a better work-life balance.
• Career Development and Growth: By fostering a culture of continuous learning and skill development, we prepare our talent to tackle tomorrow’s challenges and deliver real-world solutions. Our Grow My Way programming and skills-first approach ensures you have the tools and knowledge to grow, lead, and thrive in an AI-enabled future.
• Industry Competitive Benefits: We offer comprehensive benefit plans to include flexible vacation, two company-wide Mental Health Days off, access to the Headspace app, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, employee incentive programs, and resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.
• Culture: Globally recognized, award-winning reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work-life balance, and more. We live by our values: Obsess over our Customers, Compete to Win, Challenge (Y)our Thinking, Act Fast / Learn Fast, and Stronger Together.
• Social Impact: Make an impact in your community with our Social Impact Institute. We offer employees two paid volunteer days off annually and opportunities to get involved with pro-bono consulting projects and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives.
• Making a Real-World Impact: We are one of the few companies globally that helps its customers pursue justice, truth, and transparency. Together, with the professionals and institutions we serve, we help uphold the rule of law, turn the wheels of commerce, catch bad actors, report the facts, and provide trusted, unbiased information to people all over the world.
• In the United States, Thomson Reuters offers a comprehensive benefits package to our employees. Our benefit package includes market competitive health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance programs, as well as a competitive 401k plan with company match. In addition, Thomson Reuters offers market leading work life benefits with competitive vacation, sick and safe paid time off, paid holidays (including two company mental health days off), parental leave, sabbatical leave. These benefits meet or exceeds the requirements of paid time off in accordance with any applicable state or municipal laws. Finally, Thomson Reuters offers the following additional benefits: optional hospital, accident and sickness insurance paid 100% by the employee; optional life and AD&D insurance paid 100% by the employee; Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts; fitness reimbursement; access to Employee Assistance Program; Group Legal Identity Theft Protection benefit paid 100% by employee; access to 529 Plan; commuter benefits; Adoption & Surrogacy Assistance; Tuition Reimbursement; and access to Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree