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About This Role
Minimum qualifications:
- PhD in Computer Science, Economics, Computational Social Science, Data Science, or Political Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- 2 years of experience with statistical concepts, data analysis, and visualization.
- 2 years of experience with programming languages (e.g., R, Python), relevant libraries (e.g., Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn), or other scripting languages.
- 2 years of experience with AI evaluation.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience creating AI evaluations or benchmarks.
- Advanced understanding of statistical concepts, and ability to perform data analysis and visualization.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills and ability to effectively communicate and work with researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds in research publications, policy briefs, or presentations targeted at both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Peer reviewed publication on AI auditing/evaluation, especially if it relates to societal impact.
About the job
As a Research Scientist on the Sociotechnical Analysis of Model Behavior (SAMBA) team in the Responsible Research Group (R2), you will conduct research on model behaviors that impact people and society. You will design tools and methods for measuring the impact of AI on society, broadly defined, design experiments, and develop measures to characterize model properties relevant to responsibility and safety. As one part of your work, you will collaborate closely with other Research Scientists and Research Engineers to build frontier evaluations, apply them in practice, and publish results.
You will be joining a specialized Responsibility team within Google. While our reporting structure sits within Google's broader Trust & Safety organization, our work remains deeply integrated with DeepMind.
Artificial intelligence will be one of humanity’s most transformative inventions. At Google DeepMind, we are a pioneering AI lab with exceptional interdisciplinary teams focused on advancing AI development to solve complex global challenges and accelerate high-quality product innovation for billions of users. We use our technologies for widespread public benefit and scientific discovery, ensuring safety and ethics are always our highest priority.
We are pushing the boundaries across multiple domains. Our global teams offer diverse learning opportunities and varied career pathways for those driven to achieve exceptional results through collective effort. Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.
US: $207000 - $300000 (USD) + 20% bonus target + equity + benefits
Learn more about benefits at Google.Responsibilities
- Identify new research areas and questions.
- Design and conduct research and experiments.
- Develop and test new metrics and measures.
- Perform data analysis to synthesize and visualize research findings and evaluation results.
- Lead writing results for research publications.
Google is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Google's EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing our Accommodations for Applicants form.
Salary Context
This $207K-$300K range is above the 75th percentile for Research Scientist roles in our dataset (median: $196K across 89 roles with salary data).
Role Details
About This Role
Research Scientists push the boundaries of what AI can do. They design experiments, develop novel architectures, publish papers, and translate research breakthroughs into production capabilities. This is where the fundamental advances happen, from attention mechanisms to diffusion models to reasoning chains.
The work is intellectually demanding and often ambiguous. You might spend months on an approach that doesn't pan out. The best research scientists combine deep mathematical intuition with engineering pragmatism. They know when to go deep on theory and when to run experiments. They read papers voraciously and can spot incremental contributions from genuine breakthroughs.
Across the 10,827 AI roles we're tracking, Research Scientist positions make up 2% of the market. At DeepMind, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Research Scientist roles are concentrated at major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR) and well-funded AI startups. The competition is intense. PhD is effectively required for most positions, and publication track record matters. Compensation is among the highest in AI, reflecting both the scarcity of talent and the strategic importance of research breakthroughs.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week includes: reading and discussing recent papers with your team, designing and running experiments on multi-GPU clusters, analyzing results and iterating on hypotheses, writing up findings for internal review or publication, and collaborating with engineering teams to productionize promising results. The ratio of thinking to coding is higher than in engineering roles.
Research Scientist roles are concentrated at major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR) and well-funded AI startups. The competition is intense. PhD is effectively required for most positions, and publication track record matters. Compensation is among the highest in AI, reflecting both the scarcity of talent and the strategic importance of research breakthroughs.
Skills Required
PhD strongly preferred for most roles. Deep expertise in a specific area (NLP, computer vision, reinforcement learning, multimodal) is expected. PyTorch is the standard. Publication track record matters. Strong mathematical foundations in linear algebra, probability, optimization, and information theory are assumed.
Beyond the fundamentals, companies value experience with large-scale distributed training, novel architecture design, and the ability to bridge theory and practice. Understanding of current frontier topics (reasoning, multimodal, long-context, alignment) is essential. Code quality matters more than many researchers expect. Labs want researchers who can implement their ideas cleanly.
Strong research postings specify the research area, mention the team you'd join, and describe the problems they're working on. They often list recent publications from the team. Vague 'AI research' postings without specifics usually mean the company wants to sound impressive but doesn't have a real research agenda.
Compensation Benchmarks
Research Scientist roles pay a median of $223,400 based on 789 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $193,200. This role's midpoint ($253K) sits 13% above the category median. Disclosed range: $207K to $300K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,480. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,111. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($266,050) and AI Engineering Manager ($253,461). By seniority level: Entry: $112,320; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $230,000; Director: $272,300; VP: $236,450.
DeepMind AI Hiring
DeepMind has 14 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across Research Engineer, AI/ML Engineer, AI Product Manager, Research Scientist. Positions span Mountain View, CA, US, Washington, DC, US, New York, NY, US. Compensation range: $210K - $364K.
Location Context
AI roles in New York pay a median of $221,000 across 3,262 tracked positions. That's 4% above the national median.
Career Path
Common paths into Research Scientist roles include PhD Student, Research Engineer, Postdoc.
From here, career progression typically leads toward Research Lead, Distinguished Scientist, VP of Research.
The PhD is the entry point for most paths. Choose your advisor and research area carefully since they'll define your first industry position. Publish consistently, contribute to open-source projects in your area, and build relationships at conferences. Industry research offers better compensation and compute resources than academia, but the pressure to show product impact is real.
What to Expect in Interviews
Research interviews are multi-stage: a research talk (present your best paper), technical deep-dives on your methodology, and often a 'research proposal' exercise where you design an experiment to test a hypothesis. Coding rounds test implementation ability alongside theoretical knowledge. Be prepared to implement a paper from scratch and discuss the design choices the authors made. Strong candidates can critique papers constructively and identify gaps in experimental methodology.
When evaluating opportunities: Strong research postings specify the research area, mention the team you'd join, and describe the problems they're working on. They often list recent publications from the team. Vague 'AI research' postings without specifics usually mean the company wants to sound impressive but doesn't have a real research agenda.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 10,827 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 122 entry-level, 5,256 mid-level, 3,922 senior, and 1,527 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (665 positions). The remaining 10,097 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,480. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,111. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($266,050 median, 70 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($253,461 median, 58 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 476 roles).
Research Scientist roles are concentrated at major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR) and well-funded AI startups. The competition is intense. PhD is effectively required for most positions, and publication track record matters. Compensation is among the highest in AI, reflecting both the scarcity of talent and the strategic importance of research breakthroughs.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 10,827 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (8,288), AI Software Engineer (548), AI Product Manager (471). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (122) are outnumbered by mid-level (5,256) and senior (3,922) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,527 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (665 positions), with 10,097 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,480. Top-quartile roles start at $264,111, and the 90th percentile reaches $318,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $266,050 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $140,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,093 postings), Aws (1,100 postings), Azure (910 postings), Rag (863 postings), Gcp (680 postings), Pytorch (549 postings), Claude (532 postings), Kubernetes (511 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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