Senior Research Scientist, AI & Workforce Intelligence

Senior Research Scientist, AI & Workforce Intelligence

Remote;
Vernon Hills, Illinois, United States

Work a four-day week from anywhere for a company where people genuinely believe in what they do. Wonderlic leads the way in fair, predictive science to create a world where everyone finds and thrives in their best job—and that starts with you. We expertly combine our science-based assessment expertise with I-O psychology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to deliver evidence-based insights that empower smarter employment decisions.

Our simple, intuitive assessment tools help sophisticated HR teams identify top applicants, predict on-the-job performance, and ensure our own team is engaged and equipped to do their best work.

Wonderlic has always championed progressive, sustainable approaches that allow people to excel professionally while living balanced, fulfilling lives. Here are some of the ways we do that:

• Work from anywhere in the United States
• Four-day work week
• Generous PTO plus a paid company shutdown from 12/24 to 1/1
• Benefits include medical, dental, vision, 401k with matching, paid new parent leave

What Sets Us Apart:

• Scientific Precision:
  We apply rigorous scientific methodologies to develop assessments that accurately gauge individuals' potential and fit within various organizational contexts.
• Innovation:
  Our dedication to continuous improvement drives us to explore cutting-edge techniques and technologies, ensuring our assessments remain at the forefront of talent assessment.
• Impactful Solutions:
  By integrating I-O Psychology principles into our processes, we deliver solutions that not only meet the immediate hiring needs of organizations but also contribute to long-term success and retention.

Wonderlic is seeking a Senior Research Scientist to sit at the precise intersection of I-O psychology and machine learning - someone who has spent time building real systems with real data who cares deeply about what those systems are predicting. This is not a role for an ML engineer who finds people data interesting as a side project, or for an I-O psychologist who has learned to code.

We're looking for someone who has genuinely lived in both worlds and is ready to own the problems that live between them.

Wonderlic built its applied AI/ML team from scratch, developed the Jobs Engine, a first-of-its-kind machine learning system for job analysis at scale, and won the 2025 SIOP Machine Learning Competition. We're now refining and expanding that work to deliver sharper, richer job analysis insights across thousands of roles. You will own the continued improvement of our jobs engine, the system that ingests labor market data and produces job analysis at scale across thousands of roles, and serve as one of the organization's experts on how AI should be applied to both employee selection and development.

As Senior Research Scientist, you will set the scientific and technical direction for how Wonderlic understands work at scale and translates assessment science into AI-powered insight. Your work will directly determine the quality, defensibility, and reach of the inferences our platform makes about jobs and people - inferences that drive hiring decisions, development plans, and coaching conversations for millions of users.

You will be the person in the organization who can hold both the I-O science question and the production ML question in the same breath, and answer both.

Lead the Continued Development of the Jobs Engine: Own the architecture, integrity, and continuous expansion of Wonderlic's AI job analysis system, which ingests labor market data from O
* NET, Linked In, Indeed, and other sources to extrapolate cognitive complexity ratings, norm groups, and occupational interest profiles for thousands of jobs. Build and refine the models that make inferences about work content from unstructured text. Leverage existing occupational taxonomies (e.g., O
* NET, ESCO) where appropriate but also expand beyond them. Ensure all outputs are scientifically defensible and scalable as the nature of work evolves.

Act as an Expert on AI Implementation Across the Organization: Partner with product managers, engineers, and I-O psychologists to translate scientific requirements into AI-powered systems and ensure those systems meet the standards the work demands. Advise on which approaches are best suited to specific implementation challenges - assessment interpretation, manager and teams reporting, coaching content - and help teams understand what good looks like before they build and after they ship.

Serve as an internal resource on what ML and AI can and cannot do in assessment and organizational contexts, and contribute to Wonderlic's external scientific credibility.

Drive Scientific Rigor: Apply I-O psychology principles - adverse impact consideration, norm group construction, and evidence-based evaluation standards - to every system you build. Ensure that Wonderlic's AI products meet…