Manager, AI Research

Role overview

Leadership and research delivery

• Lead, hire, coach, evaluate, and develop a high-performing team of AI research scientists and technical practitioners.
• Guide applied research teams in framing problems, evaluating approaches, designing experiments, developing models and prototypes, and deciding what merits further investment or production transition.
• Advance Vanguard's strategic research partnership with the University of Toronto and build other relevant partnerships.
• Move research through experimentation, validation, prototyping, technology transfer, and production adoption.
• Maintain technical engagement in research methods, experiments, model development, evaluation, and engineering trade-offs.
• Assess emerging capabilities including generative AI, language models, agentic systems, reasoning, multimodal AI, AI evaluation, trustworthy AI, and machine learning.

Evaluation, adoption, and strategy

• Establish rigorous practices for experimental design, benchmarking, model evaluation, reproducibility, and validation.
• Work with engineering and product teams on technical requirements, success criteria, architecture, and research-to-production transition plans.
• Manage initiatives across maturity horizons, balancing exploration and near-term value.
• Ensure work considers reliability, safety, security, privacy, robustness, explainability, and responsible AI.
• Communicate findings, opportunities, risks, and recommendations to senior leaders and help inform AI investments and priorities.
• Participate in special projects and perform other assigned duties.

Minimum qualifications

• At least five years of relevant experience in AI, machine learning, computer science, statistics, or a related technical field, including developing or leading advanced AI/ML solutions.
• Demonstrated experience leading, mentoring, or managing research scientists, machine learning scientists, research engineers, or similar technical talent.
• Strong technical expertise in one or more areas of modern AI and machine learning.
• Ability to advance technical work from research and experimentation into prototypes, reusable capabilities, products, or production systems.
• Strong knowledge of experimental design, model development, evaluation, benchmarking, statistical reasoning, and reproducibility.
• Ability to make sound decisions in ambiguous environments, balance exploration and delivery, collaborate across disciplines, and communicate to technical and executive audiences.
• Master's degree in a related quantitative discipline or equivalent combination.

Preferred qualifications

• PhD in computer science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, statistics, engineering, or a related field.
• Experience leading senior scientists, researchers, or machine learning engineers.
• Technical contributions demonstrated through deployed systems, publications, patents, open-source contributions, or other meaningful artifacts.
• Experience moving AI/ML research into scalable production capabilities and partnering with engineering and product organizations on complex AI systems.
• Experience in financial services or another regulated or high-stakes environment.

Work arrangement

• Vanguard uses a hybrid working model for the majority of crew members, combining flexibility with in-person learning, collaboration, and connection.