Agentic Systems Researcher

As a member of the Globus team, the focus of this position will be to conduct research and development to 1) create agentic systems to address domain-specific problems in materials science, chemistry, biology, X-ray science and other domains, and 2) to deliver new software and services that will be used by thousands of researchers and will be seen as critical components of key US cross-agency data and AI for Science efforts and initiatives. We seek a candidate with specialized knowledge developing scalable and robust computer systems, working with high performance and distributed computing environments, and working with large-scale machine learning models. The successful candidate will contribute to the development of agentic systems, working with a team of researchers and professional staff responsible for scientific research projects and research facilities; ensure compliance of research activities with institutional, state, and federal regulatory policies, procedures, directives, and mandates; and present findings at meetings and/ or conferences. Further, the successful candidate will be responsible for independently initiating new efforts, in collaboration with the Globus and Globus Labs teams, from problem identification, to project conceptualization, successful proposal development, to implementation and delivery.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to development of software infrastructure to support creation of agentic systems.
• Build relationships with other AI/ML and data infrastructure community efforts.
• Define key directions to keep UChicago at the forefront of AI/ML and national data infrastructure.
• Ensure compliance of research activities with institutional, state, and federal regulatory policies, procedures, directives, and mandates.
• Present findings at meetings and/ or conferences.
• Lead the definition and documentation of requirements, architecture and design of secure, scalable, asynchronous, agentic systems, based on knowledge of principles of API design, asynchronous processes, service deployment and delivering highly available services. Define technical direction, and provide leadership for product initiatives.
• Engage with other leaders in the organization to develop end-to-end architecture and high-level systems designs. Prepare plans to translate business requirements into well-designed applications while balancing user and business needs, technical competencies, industry developments, and time constraints.
• Maintain a leadership role in the AI/ML and data infrastructure community. Build and maintain knowledge of relevant software technologies being developed and/or used in scientific and commercial communities; contribute to team coordination and development activities, including project planning, project reporting, and recruitment.
• Solves complex problems relating to the administration of projects, including planning new procedures, adapting existing procedures to the needs of the project, and making significant contributions to methodology.
• Guides data collection, evaluation and analysis. Designs and manages databases. Writes reports, articles and manuscripts.
• Solves complex problems relating to the administration of projects, including planning new procedures, adapting existing procedures to the needs of the project, and making significant contributions to methodology.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.

Work Experience:

Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 5-7 years of work experience in a related job discipline., * Experience leading the design, development and publication of innovative projects in AI/ML solutions.

• Relevant programming experience developing, implementing, debugging, and maintaining applications with Python.
• Experience training ML models using large-scale and specialized hardware.
• Experience working with high performance computers (e.g., parallelizing and distributing code).
• Experience in distributed data management and workflow systems.

Preferred Competencies

• Ability to build systems where agents operate with independence, make decisions, and execute complex workflows.
• Expertise in engineering modular, dynamic workflows for agents, breaking problems into sub-tasks and designing feedback loops for ongoing improvement.
• Understanding of patterns, where multiple agents collaborate and specialize within larger systems for scalability and robustness.
• Competence in equipping agents with planning capabilities, persistent memory across sessions/tasks, and causal/logical reasoning to enhance autonomy and effectiveness.

Working Conditions

• Ability to work in a team environment.
• Remote position with some onsite requirements for team meetings and site visits.
• Requires the ability to work independently.

$66,500.00 - $83,100.00 per year

Globus (www.globus.org) is a sustainable, non-profit unit within The University of Chicago delivering solutions to the research community worldwide. Globus develops and provides critical services that support scientific research for governmental, academic, and commercial organizations in a wide range of disciplines including life sciences, physics, and astronomy. We develop and operate commercial-quality, cloud-based software application and platform services used by 10s of thousands of researchers to manage their large-and growing-data management challenges. We have offices located at the NBC Tower in the heart of downtown Chicago and remote employees who work-from-home. Globus, together with Globus Labs, a research group within the University of Chicago, and part of the Data Science and Learning Division at Argonne National Labs, develop and deploy cutting edge technologies to solve new challenges facing the scientific community and enable break-through scientific discoveries.