Spain Only - Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist

Overview: Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7, high-quality text-based mental health support and crisis intervention by empowering a community of trained volunteers to support people in their moments of need.
Our mission is at the intersection of empathy and innovation — we promote mental well-being for people wherever they are.
Our vision is an empathetic world where nobody feels alone.
Our core values are at the heart of all we do: connect with empathy, center equity, get it done together, and reflect and evolve.
Why you should join our team: Our work is transforming the way people in pain access support at their fingertips.
Our work is innovative in the crisis response space.
Our dynamic, fun, and diverse culture.
Our meaningful cause, led by empathy and innovation.
Our strong values at the center of all we do.
Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Our commitment to engagement and belonging.
Our commitment to our employees and their holistic wellbeing.
Our value of work/life balance.
Our growth mindset and prioritize professional development.
Our leaders who truly care.
What you'll be doing: The purpose of the Research Impact department is to demonstrate and amplify Crisis Text Line's impact for texters, our volunteer community, and broader society towards our mission of promoting well-being for people wherever they are.
It is imperative that we demonstrate impact against our mission, and we consider it our duty to contribute solutions-oriented insights to the field of mental health together with an international network of affiliated partners committed to collective social impact in the context of the global mental health epidemic.
The Research Impact team serves the organization's mission by championing the generation of compelling, evidence-grounded, data-driven content, resources, and tools for internal stakeholders and the broader mental health field.
As a Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist within the Research Impact team, you will lead foundational ML/AI efforts to deliver a consistent flow of high-quality, insightful research aimed at evidencing and optimizing the impact of Crisis Text Line's service and improving practice, policy, and the broader field of mental health support in the US and globally.
You will use Natural Language Processing techniques and Machine Learning models to monitor emerging trends and identify novel signals in crisis conversations so that we can generate near-real-time insights with a potential to improve the lives of people in crisis.
Reporting to the Senior Principal Research Scientist as an individual contributor, you will work in close collaboration with all members of the Research Impact team, as well as with global network affiliates and cross-functional partners in data analytics, clinical, volunteer experience, user research, engineering, and product teams.
Promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion, as well as deliberately highlighting various identities, particularly those of historically minoritized groups, is an explicit focus of our work.
Responsibilities: Crisis Text Line is a fast-moving, growing organization with a big vision and a critical mission.
To serve our mission and vision, each role must be agile and flexible to meet the needs of the business, aligning their work with priorities as defined by their manager and team leaders.
Lead Machine Learning to Deliver New Research Insights for Crisis Text Line.
ML/AI/NLP engineering and model development: lead the design and implementation of custom ML/deep learning/NLP pipelines to analyze conversational data.
Pipelines will include data ingestion, preprocessing, feature generation, model selection and development, and fine-tuning.
ML/AI/NLP model evaluation: contribute to the design and implementation of pipelines to evaluate model performance, accuracy, and reliability; and to evaluate and mitigate bias.
Fully own model pipelines, from data collection and labeling to deployment.
Perform statistical analyses (e.g.
hypothesis testing, linear regression, logistic regression, linear mixed effect models) in R or Python to contribute to the team's scientific output.
Use Spark and/or SQL to clean and transform data, join tables, and create automated ETL jobs to regularly update datasets, ensuring availability for analysis and reporting.
Support or lead collaborative strategic research sprints, adhering to rigorous, industry-standard research methods and documentation practices, and ensuring research reproducibility.
Visualize data (matplotlib, ggplot, plotly) to support internal and external communication of research findings.
Write research grants, briefs, memos, technical reports, and scientific manuscripts for peer-reviewed publications.
Communicate Results Support Data Storytelling Communicate and share model performance and impact in a digestible way with the rest of the team and organization.
Support efforts to communicate results for both technical and non-technical audiences, including ongoing management of organization-wide internal data insights and research requests as a member of the core workflow team.
Lead ML/AI Documentation and Coding Practices on the Research and Impact Team Implement industry standard documentation and coding protocols and practices on the Research and Impact team.
Provide technical assistance, code reviews, and mentorship to other members of the Research Impact team related to ML/AI/NLP model development and implementation.
Support the development or review of external-facing content referencing Crisis Text Line data and insights, as appropriate.
Qualifications: 6+ years of combined training and experience in computational social science, natural language processing, computer science, or related disciplines.
Theoretical and practical understanding of ML/AI/NLP models both for structured and unstructured data.
Experience in programming languages used for data manipulation, computational statistics, distributed computing, and ML workflows (such as Python, Spark, R, MATLAB, C++, Java, Go), and with SQL.
Ability to write clean and modular code, maintained with version control tools.
Extensive hands-on experience with multiple NLP techniques (task-specific fine-tuning of large language models, text parsing, lemmatization, topic modeling, named entity recognition, text classification, relation extraction, sentiment analysis, etc.).
Skills in translating research results into non-technical insights for broad consumption.
Reliable High-Speed Internet Required: Must have a stable high-speed internet connection to support seamless remote collaboration, virtual meetings, online job tasks, etc.
Benefits: Crisis Text Line employee benefits are thoughtfully designed using an equity lens, acknowledging that we are all unique human beings with individual life circumstances that require flexibility and support.
Benefits include: 20 paid holidays including: Federal holidays like Juneteenth and Labor Day Election day Holiday break from Dec 24 through January 1 2 renewal days 2 floating holidays Flexible paid time off, including: 15 vacation days 3 personal days 7 sick days Medical, dental, and vision benefits for the staff member and family at no cost to the employee.
403B retirement plan (the nonprofit equivalent of a 401K): 3% contribution by Crisis Text Line to support building financial wellness, regardless of personal contribution.
12 weeks paid parental leave (after 6 months of employment).
Student loan repayment (after 2 years of continuous full-time service).
Family support through a virtual childcare platform.
Stipends/Allowances for mental health, internet service, professional development, wellness, and home office setup.
(Benefits are only for US-based employees.
International benefits may differ).
Crisis Text Line is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.
We provide reasonable accommodation to individuals who have a disability and meet the skill, experience, education, and other job-related requirements of the role to allow the individual to perform the essential functions of the job.
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