Senior Applied Scientist at Guild in Colorado

At Guild, we believe talent is everywhere and that opportunity should be too. We continue to have our home and headquarters in Denver, but we have embraced a distributed model of working to reach the best talent in the United States. While some roles may require proximity to our Denver office, roles based outside of our Denver office can sit in any of the following 32 states: AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, NC, NH, NJ, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI and Washington D.C. Please only apply if you are able to live and work full-time in one of the states listed above. State locations and specifics are subject to change as our hiring requirements shift. If you are an Internal Candidate, please apply via our Internal Job Board. ---- To thrive as a company and meet our impact goals, we must cultivate a culture of high-performance. We know managers are often the single-largest driver of employee satisfaction and growth, and our talent is our biggest asset. Because of that, we’ve identified consistent expectations for all of Guild’s people managers — helping you know what to expect from your experience here. ---- Guild is hiring a Senior Applied Scientist. The Opportunity Join Guild at a pivotal moment as we build the AI/ML foundation that will transform how working adults navigate their education and career journeys. As a Senior Applied Scientist, you'll move beyond theoretical models to deliver production AI systems that directly improve member experiences—from augmenting our program and career data to developing agentic solutions and contributing to our Apollo platform's reinforcement learning capabilities. This is a high-impact role where your work ships to production and drives measurable outcomes for the millions of members we serve. Here are the outcomes you will be expected to achieve: Deliver production AI/ML models that augment Guild's program and career data, empowering downstream product and analytics capabilities Launch production agentic data solutions through Databricks that improve information retrieval and synthesis while reducing operational costs Contribute to Guild's Apollo platform by developing AI/ML components including our reinforcement learning process and AI memory layer Here's what you will do in this role to achieve these outcomes: Design, develop, and deploy production-ready AI/ML models that integrate into the product experience and drive measurable improvements in member outcomes and business performance Build robust evaluation frameworks including offline metrics, A/B testing, and monitoring strategies to assess model performance and business impact Own the end-to-end model lifecycle: deployment, monitoring, drift detection, retraining, and incident response using Guild's MLOps best practices Manipulate and analyze large, complex datasets using Python, SQL, Databricks, MLFlow, dbt, and Snowflake Partner with business stakeholders to translate strategic challenges into concrete, lasting AI/ML solutions Collaborate with engineering, innovation architects, and technical experts to operationalize models and stay current on emerging AI capabilities Influence the technical roadmap and architecture of Guild's AI platform by making principled tradeoffs across model complexity, scalability, latency, and cost Translate cutting-edge research (reinforcement learning, foundation models) into pragmatic, scalable solutions while exercising judgment about when ML is the right tool You are probably a strong candidate for this role if you've accomplished: Shipped AI/ML models to production that drove measurable business or product outcomes (not just research or POCs) Built and maintained evaluation frameworks that included both offline experimentation and live A/B testing Developed data pipelines or ML infrastructure that scaled to support large datasets and multiple downstream consumers Translated ambiguous business problems into well-scoped ML solutions—and knew when not to use ML Worked cross-functionally with engineering, product, and business teams to operationalize technical solutions Here are the skills/competencies you have that will be needed to achieve the expected outcomes: Strong proficiency in Python and SQL for data manipulation and model development Hands-on experience with modern ML/data platforms (Databricks, MLFlow, Snowflake, dbt or similar) Deep understanding of the full ML lifecycle: from experimentation through deployment, monitoring, and iteration Familiarity with reinforcement learning, foundation models, or agentic AI architectures Ability to design rigorous experiments and interpret results to inform product decisions Strong communication skills to partner effectively with non-technical stakeholders Sound judgment in balancing technical complexity with practical business constraints We are committed to equal pay for equal work and believe in compensation transparency. All salary ranges are standardized nationwide and will not vary by region. This role offers a competitive total compensation package, including a base salary of $150,000 - $170,000 and stock options. Compensation offered will be based on a combination of factors such as experience, competencies, and internal equity. Posting Date: May 11, 2026 *This role will stay open for a minimum of 3 days. Guild partners with the country’s most innovative employers, including Chipotle, Target, Walgreens, JPMorgan Chase, Hilton, Spectrum, PepsiCo, Tyson, and more, to build the talent needed for today and a resilient workforce for tomorrow. Guild helps employers identify, develop, and mobilize internal talent, enabling workers to gain skills for in-demand roles and companies to stay agile. By connecting employees to real-world learning, coaching, and career support, and providing companies with actionable talent insights, Guild transforms all talent into high-impact contributors and positions companies for long-term, sustainable growth. For more information, visit https://www.guild.com. Guild is a female-founded, certified B Corp. The company has been recognized by Fortune’s Change the World list (2021, 2025), the Forbes Cloud 100 (2020–2025), Great Place to Work (2022–2025), CNBC’s Disruptor 50 (2021–2024), TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies (2022), Inc.’s Best-Led Companies (2021), Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas (2020), and B Lab’s Best for the World (2019), among many others. Guild is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let your recruiter know. We currently offer the following benefits: Access to low-cost, high-quality health care options through Collective Health and Kaiser (due to coverage limitations, Kaiser is currently only available in CA & CO) Access to a 401k to help save for the future Vacation policy to rest and recharge 8 days of fully-paid sick leave, to take the time to heal and or recover Family-friendly benefits, including 12 weeks of parental leave for non-birthing parents and 18-20 weeks for birthing parents; 2-week ramp-up period for when employees return from a leave of 6 weeks or more; as well as employer-paid short-term and long-term disability, employer-sponsored life insurance, fertility and caregiving benefits. Well-rounded wellness benefits including free and low cost mental health resources and financial wellbeing support services Education benefits and tuition assistance to help your future development and growth PRIVACY NOTICE I understand that I am applying for employment with Guild and am being asked to provide information in connection with my application. I further understand that Guild gathers this information through a third-party service provider and that Guild may use other service providers to assist in the application process. Guild may share my information with such third-party service providers in connection with my application and for the start of employment. I understand and agree to Guild's use of my information in accordance with Guild's Privacy Policy and, for applicants that are residents of the State of California, Guild's Applicant Privacy Notice and California Notice at Collection.