{"id":3139169,"url":"https://alion.io/job/photon-principal-data-scientist-boston","title":"Principal Data Scientist_Boston","company":{"id":3186451,"name":"Photon","domain":"photon.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/photon-com","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Oracle","truth_index":{"grade":"D","score":51,"open_postings":701,"ghost_share":0.812,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"}},"role":"Data Science","role_family":"Data Science","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":64000,"max":null,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":64000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"AWS Bedrock","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Claude","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"DeepEval","optional":false},{"name":"DPO","optional":false},{"name":"Embeddings","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"Gemini","optional":false},{"name":"GraphRAG","optional":false},{"name":"Hallucination","optional":false},{"name":"Hybrid Search","optional":false},{"name":"In-Context Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Knowledge Graph","optional":false},{"name":"Llama","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"LoRA","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Mistral","optional":false},{"name":"MLFlow","optional":false},{"name":"Multimodal AI","optional":false},{"name":"NumPy","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"OpenSearch","optional":false},{"name":"Pandas","optional":false},{"name":"PEFT","optional":false},{"name":"pgvector","optional":false},{"name":"Pinecone","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Qdrant","optional":false},{"name":"QLoRA","optional":false},{"name":"Qwen","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"RLHF","optional":false},{"name":"Scikit-learn","optional":false},{"name":"SFT","optional":false},{"name":"TruLens","optional":false},{"name":"Neo4j","optional":true},{"name":"NLP","optional":true},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true},{"name":"pySpark","optional":true},{"name":"Spark","optional":true},{"name":"Transformers","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-13T19:14:28Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-13","last_verified_at":"2026-10-25T20:03:41Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":73,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":72},"description":"Location: Onsite\nExperience: 10-15+ years in Data Science & Applied ML, with 4+ years dedicated to Generative AI, LLMs, and Advanced Retrieval Systems\nPrimary Objective\nWe are seeking a Principal Data Scientist specializing in Generative AI to serve as our top technical authority on model science, advanced retrieval methodologies, AI quality, and evaluation strategy. In this leadership role, you will define the scientific vision for our enterprise GenAI capabilities-pioneering novel RAG architectures (GraphRAG, Hybrid Search), designing org-wide evaluation and alignment frameworks, leading domain-specific model adaptation (SFT, DPO/RLHF), and ensuring our production AI systems maintain world-class accuracy, safety, and reliability.\nSuccess looks like: Defining company-wide evaluation benchmarks that eliminate hallucination risks, championing state-of-the-art retrieval/fine-tuning techniques that give us a competitive edge, and bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI research and production-grade business value across global delivery teams.\nKey Responsibilities\nScientific Leadership & Strategic Vision\nDefine the enterprise science roadmap for Generative AI, model alignment, advanced retrieval, and AI safety/trustworthiness. \nPioneer state-of-the-art RAG paradigms-including GraphRAG, Knowledge Graphs, multi-modal embeddings, and hybrid sparse/dense search architectures. \nLead model selection, adaptation, and optimization strategies across proprietary (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini) and open-source foundation models (Llama, Mistral, Qwen), evaluating when to use RAG vs. Fine-tuning (SFT/LoRA) vs. In-Context Learning. \nPartner with business executives and product leaders to translate complex business objectives into quantifiable AI metrics and scientific experiments. \nAI Quality, Evaluation & Trust Blueprinting\nEstablish enterprise-wide evaluation standards, benchmarking frameworks, and automated testbeds for hallucination detection, factual precision, bias mitigation, and toxicity prevention. \nArchitect continuous monitoring and statistical evaluation mechanisms for live production systems (online LLM observability, output drift, and semantic regression testing). \nLead Responsible AI, Explainability, and AI Governance initiatives-defining scientific methodologies to audit AI decisions in highly regulated enterprise environments. \nCross-Functional Collaboration & Technical Mentorship\nWork in lockstep with Enterprise AI Architects and AI Engineering teams to seamlessly transition research prototypes into scalable, production-ready microservices. \nMentor and upskill senior data scientists, applied ML engineers, and offshore team members on advanced ML methods, statistical evaluation rigor, and research best practices. \nRepresent the enterprise as a subject matter expert in AI innovation, presenting key technical breakthroughs to executive stakeholders. \nTechnical Experience & Qualifications\nMust-Have Experience & Skills\n10-15+ years of progressive experience in Data Science, Machine Learning, and Applied Research, with 4+ years leading Generative AI & Deep Learning initiatives. \nDeep theoretical and practical mastery of LLM architectures, attention mechanisms, embedding spaces, fine-tuning techniques (PEFT, LoRA, QLoRA), and model alignment (DPO, RLHF). \nProven track record designing enterprise-grade RAG architectures, vector search ecosystems (Pinecone, Qdrant, OpenSearch, pgvector), and hybrid retrieval algorithms. \nIndustry expertise in designing automated LLM evaluation frameworks (e.g., RAGAS, DeepEval, TruLens) and ground-truth dataset curation methods. \nDeep fluency in Python and ML/DL frameworks (PyTorch, Scikit-learn, Pandas, NumPy). \nExperience deploying and optimizing models across cloud platforms (Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock, Databricks/MLflow). \nPreferred Skills\nHands-on expertise with GraphRAG, Knowledge Graphs, and graph databases (Neo4j). \nStrong background in Banking, Financial Services, or similarly regulated enterprise domains. \nExperience with distributed computing frameworks (PySpark, Databricks) for large-scale data processing and model evaluation. \nPublication record or open-source contributions in applied NLP, Information Retrieval, or Generative AI. \nCore Competencies & Soft Skills\nScientific Rigor: Unwavering commitment to statistical validation, empirical testing, and evidence-based decision making. \n Business Acumen: Ability to tie complex technical metrics (e.g., Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain, BLEU/ROUGE, context precision) directly to ROI and business KPIs. \nThought Leadership: Clear, persuasive communication style capable of building consensus between research scientists, platform engineers, and business leaders. \nCompensation, Benefits and Duration\nMinimum Compensation: USD 64,000\nMaximum Compensation: USD 224,000\nCompensation is based on actual experience and qualifications of the candidate. The above is a reasonable and a good faith estimate for the role.\nMedical, vision, and dental benefits, 401k retirement plan, variable pay/incentives, paid time off, and paid holidays are available for full-time employees.\nThis position is not available for independent contractors\nNo applications will be considered if received more than 120 days after the date of this post","description_format":"text","description_chars":5289,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":4,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["401k plan","Retirement plans"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["IT Consulting & Digital Transformation"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-23T07:32:17Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":12,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.427,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":72,"expected_fill_days":23,"reasons":["conf:8","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":64000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/photon-principal-data-scientist-boston","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/photon-principal-data-scientist-boston.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-25T21:52:05Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":30891,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-26T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":3186451},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3186451"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fphoton-principal-data-scientist-boston"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fphoton-principal-data-scientist-boston"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fphoton-principal-data-scientist-boston"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/photon-principal-data-scientist-boston\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fphoton-principal-data-scientist-boston"}]}