Research Scientist, Foundational Data Science

Overview

We are representing a confidential AI research organization working at the frontier of foundation models for structured data. Our client is tackling one of the most consequential unsolved problems in machine learning: building models that can generalize across the entire landscape of tabular data science tasks. Their work has achieved significant academic recognition and real-world production deployment across healthcare, industrial, and enterprise applications.

We are seeking a Research Scientist to join their foundational data science team in Berlin. This role combines frontier AI research with rigorous benchmark development—you'll both invent new model capabilities and build the dataset infrastructure that ensures progress is measured against real-world impact rather than synthetic leaderboards.

Responsibilities

• Invent and build frontier tools that extend tabular foundation models, including reasoning, scaling, and agentic capabilities that enable generalization across diverse data science problems
• Set research direction by identifying which model capabilities and benchmarks are worth pursuing, choosing problems worth solving rather than optimizing predefined metrics
• Build trustworthy benchmarks from real, high-impact structured data problems to ensure the team optimizes for genuine real-world performance
• Faithfully implement baselines and competitor models that represent the gold standard of applied data science, establishing clear performance comparisons
• Develop automated, agentic pipelines with human-in-the-loop oversight to scale dataset and benchmark creation while maintaining rigor
• Integrate external research findings and customer needs to shape new model and tooling directions
• Publish frontier results that advance the field of foundation models for structured data

What We're Looking For

Required Experience and Skills:

• Proven track record solving data science problems across many domains and datasets to a high standard, optimizing for strong performance across task suites rather than single-task excellence
• Undogmatic proficiency across the ML toolbox, including achieving strong results with gradient-boosted trees (XGBoost, LightGBM) as well as deep learning approaches
• Deep understanding of common dataset defects: leakage, label noise, distribution shift, duplication, mislabeled targets, and how each corrupts training or benchmark signals
• Genuine energy for foundational work—you value dataset and benchmark infrastructure as much as cutting-edge model development
• Ability to thrive as a senior individual contributor in ambiguous, early-stage, low-process environments
• Strong opinions on data science best practices with excellent judgment for complex problem-solving

Nice to Have:

• Experience building or extending evaluation harnesses, benchmark suites, or experiment frameworks used by research teams
• Experience building LLM- or agent-assisted pipelines with human-in-the-loop components to scale manual workflows
• Track record bridging external research or customer needs with internal model or product roadmaps
• Prior work on tabular data, structured data, foundation models, or helping shape emerging research subfields through community contributions

Location: Berlin-based preferred. The team values in-person collaboration for frontier research work. Remote arrangements may be considered in exceptional cases with frequent travel to Berlin.

How We Work with You

When you apply through Get A Job.ai, our recruiting team will conduct an initial screening to understand your background and ensure strong alignment with the role requirements. If there's a mutual fit, we will submit your profile to our client for their review. Please note that candidates should apply exclusively through our platform and not contact the client directly—we manage the entire introduction and interview coordination process on your behalf.

Pay

Compensation details will be discussed during the screening process based on experience level and qualifications.

Equal Opportunity: Get A Job.ai is committed to inclusive recruiting practices. We welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds and identities, and we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every listed qualification.