Senior Data Scientist, Generative AI Products, HBS Foundry

By working at Harvard University, you join a vibrant community that advances Harvard's world-changing mission in meaningful ways, inspires innovation and collaboration, and builds skills and expertise. We are dedicated to creating a diverse and welcoming environment where everyone can thrive.

Why join Harvard Business School?

Harvard Business School, located on a 40-acre campus in Boston, was founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University. It is among the world's most trusted sources of management education and thought leadership. For more than a century, the School's faculty has combined a passion for teaching with rigorous research conducted alongside practitioners at world-leading organizations to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. Through a dynamic ecosystem of research, learning, and entrepreneurship that includes MBA, Doctoral, Executive Education, and Online programs, as well as numerous initiatives, centers, institutes, and labs, Harvard Business School fosters bold new ideas and collaborative learning networks that shape the future of business.

This role has the possibility of being remote or hybrid. 

• Remote work may be considered for individuals living at least 100-mile radius from campus and where all work will be completed within a state that Harvard is registered to do business in (CA, CT, GA, IL, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI, VA, VT or WA). Please note that you may be expected to come to our Boston, MA based campus with specific duration and frequency to be determined by the department’s needs.
• Hybrid - We consider hybrid to be a combination of remote and onsite work at our Boston, MA based campus. HBS expects all staff to be onsite 3 days per week and departments provide onsite coverage Monday – Friday. Specific hours and days onsite will be determined by business needs and are subject to change with appropriate advanced notice. 

Job Summary:

Lead comprehensive applications/web development for highly complex projects; typically work as part of a team to implement complex business solutions. Deliver strategic and expert coding; focus on overarching development strategy for a large, complex, multi-faceted application. May manage a number of projects simultaneously.

Job Specific Responsibilities:

Harvard Business School will not offer visa sponsorship for this opportunity.

We are seeking a talented Generative AI Engineer to join our team. In this role, you will design, develop, and deploy state-of-the-art generative AI models, directly impacting our platform's ability to provide interactive and intelligent tools for our users.

As a Senior Data Scientist specializing in Generative AI applications, you will play a pivotal role in developing innovative generative AI products that support the Harvard Business School (HBS) Foundry team and learners on our platform. This key technical role requires hands-on expertise across data science, machine learning, and AI solutions. You will manage the lifecycle of artificial intelligence algorithms and tools across a variety of domains. The Foundry Team will support with domain knowledge.

Responsibilities Include:

AI Tool Development and Implementation

• Design and implement efficient data pipelines for data collection, cleaning, labeling, and preprocessing
• Ensure quality of datasets tailored for LLM training for each product. Build data science pipelines from feature generation, data visualization and models evaluation; design the solution, build code and provide documentation with ways of working to maximize time to value, re-usability, and scalability.
• Designing, developing, deploying, and implementing multi-agent AI tools that:
  • Assess and provide feedback on venture-related submissions
  • Automatically generate pitch decks, financial projections, marketing strategies, and other materials to support entrepreneurs
  • Act as a counterparty to simulate important entrepreneurial interactions such as customer interviews, negotiations with an investor, etc.
  • Designing generative AI models using techniques like natural language processing and machine learning that can power interactive tools on HBS Foundry.
• Designing an AI-powered system that collects key factors to determine a learner’s profile, entrepreneurial progress, and venture progress, and provides customized learning pathways based on these factors.
• Integrating AI tools into the HBS Foundry platform in a seamless manner so they are easy for users to access and utilize.
• Collaborate on technical vision to accelerate product impact through cutting-edge LLM innovations.
• Building guardrails, compliance rules, and oversight workflows into the GenAI tools and Foundry platform.
• Continually improving AI tools using feedback from users to ensure they are providing valuable assistance.

Project and Performance Management

• Monitor, debug, track, and resolve production issues.
• Work with the Foundry Project Director to ensure that projects proceed on time and on budget.
• Collaborate with Product Managers to ensure proper tracking of performance KPIs and prioritize improvements based on effort and impact.
• Presenting prototypes and progress updates to stakeholders.

Research and Collaboration

• Staying up to date on the latest advances in AI/ML research and identifying how new techniques could enhance the HBS Foundry platform.
• Collaborating with a team of engineers, designers, and subject matter experts to deliver high-quality, helpful AI-powered experiences.
• Build trust and collaboration by being present on-site and engaging directly with 
  colleagues and various constituents.

This role is responsible for other duties as assigned. 

Basic Qualifications:

• Minimum of seven years’ post-secondary education or relevant work experience
• Advanced degree in computer science, data science, engineering, or a related field within AI/ML

Additional/Desired Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience building (Generative) AI models and tools highly preferrable
• Experience working in a similar role in a startup environment preferrable
• Expertise in NLP, deep learning, and other relevant techniques
• Strong programming skills in Python and frameworks like TensorFlow
• Experience building advanced workflows such as retrieval augmented generation, model chaining, dynamic prompting, PEFT/SFT, etc. using Langchain and similar tools
• Experience integrating AI into consumer-facing applications (front-end and back-end development for integrating AI solutions into web applications
• Experience establishing model guardrails and developing bias detection and mitigation techniques for AI applications using tools (such as NeMo)
• Experience with various embedding models and setting up and tuning vector databases to improve performance of semantic search and retrieval systems
• Experience working with a variety of relational SQL and NoSQL databases, big data tools (such as Hadoop, Spark, Kafka), and at least one cloud provider solution (AWS highly preferrable)
• Experience in using version control systems such as Git.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration tools like Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with API development and integration for AI services.
• Understanding of and experience with of software engineering best practices like version control, CI/CD, and containerization
• Experience establishing model guardrails and developing bias detection and mitigation techniques for AI applications
• Proficiency with various prompting techniques, with a clear understanding of tradeoffs between prompting and finetuning
• Experience with finetuning embedding models and tuning vector databases to improve performance of semantic search and retrieval systems
• Experience operationalizing end-to-end machine learning applications.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills
• Passion for using AI to solve real-world problems

• Appointment End Date: June 30, 2027, with possibility of extension.
• Standard Hours/Schedule: 40 hours per week
• Visa Sponsorship Information: Harvard University is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position
• Pre-Employment Screening: Identity, Education, Criminal
• Other Information:

This role has the possibility of being remote or hybrid. Remote work may be considered for individuals living at least 100-mile radius from campus and where all work will be completed within a state that Harvard is registered to do business in (CA - exempt roles only, CT, GA, IL, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI, VA, VT or WA). We consider hybrid to be a combination of remote and 3 days per week onsite work at our Boston, MA based campus. Specific hours and days onsite will be determined by business needs and are subject to change with appropriate advanced notice.

We may conduct candidate interviews virtually (phone and/or via Zoom) and/or in-person for this role.

As part of our evaluation, candidates are required to complete a Take Home Assignment / Hacker Rank assessment after clearing Technical Recruiter Screen. This assignment will test your specific skills/knowledge areas relevant to the role

A cover letter is required to be considered for this opportunity.

#LI-KR1

Work Format Details

This position has been determined by school or unit leaders that some of the duties and responsibilities can be effectively performed at a non-Harvard location. The work schedule and location will be set by the department at its discretion and based upon operational needs. When not working at a Harvard or Harvard-designated location, employees in hybrid positions must work in a Harvard registered state in compliance with the University’s Policy on Employment Outside of Massachusetts. Additional details will be discussed during the interview process. Certain visa types and funding sources may limit work location. Individuals must meet work location sponsorship requirements prior to employment.

Salary Grade and Ranges

This position is salary grade level 059. Please visit  Harvard's Salary Ranges  to view the corresponding salary range and related information. 

Benefits

Harvard offers a comprehensive benefits package that is designed to support a healthy work-life balance and your physical, mental and financial wellbeing. Because here, you are what matters. Our benefits include, but are not limited to: 

• Generous paid time off including parental leave 
• Medical, dental, and vision health insurance coverage starting on day one 
• Retirement plans with university contributions 
• Wellbeing and mental health resources 
• Support for families and caregivers 
• Professional development opportunities including tuition assistance and reimbursement 
• Commuter benefits, discounts and campus perks 

Learn more about these and additional benefits on our Benefits & Wellbeing Page. 

EEO/Non-Discrimination Commitment Statement

Harvard University is committed to equal opportunity and non-discrimination. We seek talent from all parts of society and the world, and we strive to ensure everyone at Harvard thrives. Our differences help our community advance Harvard's academic purposes.

Harvard has an equal employment opportunity policy that outlines our commitment to prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, religion, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law or identified in the university's non-discrimination policy. Harvard's equal employment opportunity policy and non-discrimination policy help all community members participate fully in work and campus life free from harassment and discrimination.