AI Research Scientist (Europe/UK - Remote)

Sword Health is shifting healthcare from human-first to AI-first through its AI Care platform, making world-class healthcare available anytime, anywhere, while significantly reducing costs for payers, self-insured employers, national health systems, and other healthcare organizations. Sword began by reinventing pain care with AI at its core, and has since expanded into women’s health, movement health, and more recently mental health. Since 2020, more than 700,000 members across three continents have completed 10 million AI sessions, helping Sword's 1,000+ enterprise clients avoid over $1 billion in unnecessary healthcare costs. Backed by 42 clinical studies and over 44 patents, Sword Health has raised more than $500 million from leading investors, including Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Transformation Capital, and Founders Fund. Learn more at www.swordhealth.com.
At Sword Health, our AI Research team is at the heart of our mission to free two billion people from pain. We build and fine-tune foundational AI models across multiple modalities (e.g., text, vision, and speech) to create a deeply personalized and effective care experience for our members. Our work spans the full research lifecycle, from collecting, generating and annotating data to designing and running experiments and thoroughly testing our models. As an AI Researcher, you won't just be advancing the state-of-the-art; you'll be building the core intelligence that powers our platform and directly helps people live healthier, pain-free lives. We have got all the computing power, data, and talent you need to do your best work.
What you'll be doing:

Contribute to the entire development cycle of our cutting-edge large deep learning models;

Prepare datasets, design architectures, implement solutions, train and evaluate models to improve our products;

Collaborate across engineering and clinical teams to translate cutting-edge AI research into practical applications that have clinical implications;

Work towards long-term ambitious research goals based on developing novel solutions, while identifying immediate milestones;

Turning novel research ideas into working code;

Influence progress of relevant research communities by producing publications.

What you need to have:

A PhD, or be currently enrolled in a PhD program and obtaining the degree prior to the start of employment, in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a highly technical field;

A track record of research publications in peer-reviewed academic conferences or journals;

Proficiency in Python and experience with common machine learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow);

Demonstrated ability to design experiments, and analyze and interpret their results;

Must have or be able to obtain work authorization in Portugal.

What we would love to see:

A strong research background and first-author publications in top-tier AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, COLM, ACL, EMNLP);

Deep expertise in one or more of the following areas: Large Language Models (LLMs), multimodal learning (vision, speech), deep learning, or reinforcement learning (RL);

Alternatively, a proven track record of exceptional research contributions in another highly quantitative field (e.g., Physics, Applied Mathematics, Computational Statistics), coupled with a strong passion to apply your skills to AI for healthcare;

Industry experience taken during or after the PhD. e.g., Research Internships;

Experience taking research ideas from conception to implementation, including developing and debugging complex systems;

Strong communication skills and a history of effective collaboration on research projects;

A broader record of research excellence, demonstrated through grants, fellowships, patents, impactful open-source contributions, or relevant internships.

Location: We welcome applications from candidates across Europe and the UK. We have a preference for candidates based in London, UK, or Lisbon / Porto, Portugal, where our research team is primarily located and where we have active offices, but exceptional candidates elsewhere in Europe will absolutely be considered.
Portugal - Sword Benefits & Perks:
• Health, dental and vision insurance• Meal allowance• Equity shares• Remote work allowance• Flexible working hours• Work from home• Discretionary vacation• Snacks and beverages• English class

Note: Please note that this position does not offer relocation assistance. Candidates must possess a valid EU visa and be based in Portugal.

Sword Health complies with applicable Federal and State civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of Age, Ancestry, Color, Citizenship, Gender, Gender expression, Gender identity, Gender information, Marital status, Medical condition, National origin, Physical or mental disability, Pregnancy, Race, Religion, Caste, Sexual orientation, and Veteran status.