Chief Scientist Officer

Who we are is what we do. Deel is the all-in-one payroll and HR platform for global teams. Our vision is to unlock global opportunity for every person, team, and business. Built for the way the world works today, Deel combines HRIS, payroll, compliance, benefits, performance, and equipment management into one seamless platform. With AI-powered tools and a fully owned payroll infrastructure, Deel supports every worker type in 150+ countries—helping businesses scale smarter, faster, and more compliantly. Among the largest globally distributed companies in the world, our team of 7,000 spans more than 100 countries, speaks 74 languages, and brings a connected and dynamic culture that drives continuous learning and innovation for our customers. Why should you be part of our success story? As the fastest-growing Software as a Service (SaaS) company in history, Deel is transforming how global talent connects with world-class companies – breaking down borders that have traditionally limited both hiring and career opportunities. We're not just building software; we're creating the infrastructure for the future of work, enabling a more diverse and inclusive global economy. In 2024 alone, we paid $11.2 billion to workers in nearly 100 currencies and provided healthcare and benefits to workers in 109 countries—ensuring people get paid and protected, no matter where they are. Our momentum is reflected in our achievements and customer satisfaction: CNBC Disruptor 50, Forbes Cloud 100, Deloitte Fast 500, and repeated recognition on Y Combinator's top companies list – all while maintaining a 4.83 average rating from 15,000 reviews across G2, Trustpilot, Captera, Apple and Google. Your experience at Deel will be a career accelerator. At the forefront of the global work revolution, you'll tackle complex challenges that impact millions of people's working lives. With our momentum—backed by a $17.3 billion valuation and $1 B in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in just over five years—you'll drive meaningful impact while building expertise that makes you a sought-after leader in the transformation of global work. About the role Deel is building AI into the core of how the world gets hired, managed, and paid. We're hiring our first Chief Scientist to lead the science behind it. You'll set the research agenda across Pangea, EMET, Akai, and every AI product we build next, run the evaluations that tell us what's actually working, and put your own hands on the hardest problems. You'll report directly to the CEO. The labs are racing to make models smarter. We're building what comes after: AI that does real, high-stakes work reliably, at global scale. Payroll that can't be wrong. Compliance rules that change country by country. Agents that take action instead of just answering questions. All of it running live for 40,000+ customers in 150+ countries. That gives you three things no lab can offer. Proprietary data on how people work, get hired, and get paid across 150+ countries. A direct line from your research to production, measured in weeks. And a team that makes decisions in hours, not quarters. What you'll lead You'll own the science across three AI businesses, the data underneath them, and whatever we build next. Pangea. Deel's own AI models for payroll and compliance. The bar is getting high-stakes answers right across the rules of 150+ countries, where a wrong answer means someone doesn't get paid. EMET. Still under wraps. We'll walk you through it in the first conversation. Akai. Our AI agent orchestration platform. Akai automates complex operational workflows that legacy automation can't touch, wrapping LLMs in deterministic code so outputs are accurate, not probabilistic. It launched in May 2026 and signed 11 customers in its first six weeks. The data underneath. The world's deepest dataset on global employment, payroll, and compliance. It's the foundation for research nobody else is in a position to do. What comes next. New AI products are already in motion. You'll help decide which ones we build and how. What you'll do This is a hands-on role. You'll drive the work, not watch it. Set the research agenda. Decide where Deel places its biggest bets, and hold those bets to clear measures. Do the research. Lead hands-on work on model quality, agent reliability, and evaluation. Get into the experiments, the eval logs, and the failure cases yourself. Build the benchmarks. Define how the industry measures AI that takes action in payroll, compliance, and operations. Make Deel's benchmarks the ones others adopt. Ship it. Turn research into capabilities used by 40,000+ customers, and show what enterprise AI looks like when it has to be right. Shape the roadmap. Influence what we build and in what order, alongside the CEO and executive team. When the evidence says change course, you'll make that call. Invest where it counts. Direct compute, data, people, and partnerships toward the research with the biggest payoff, including work with leading labs and universities. Build the team. Recruit and mentor exceptional researchers and engineers across Deel's AI teams. You'll set the bar for who we hire. Be Deel's scientific voice. Publish, speak at top conferences, and represent our work with partners and regulators, backed by results you helped produce. Who you are VP or SVP level or equivalent research leadership at a frontier AI lab or major technology company. You've shipped. Your research became models or products that people use at scale, not just papers. Deep technical credibility in one or more of foundation models, post-training, evaluation, agents, or reasoning. Hands-on. You can write the code, design the experiment, and read the results without waiting for a team to summarize them. Strong evaluation instincts. You know how benchmarks mislead, and how to build ones that don't. The judgment to turn research into product and business decisions, and the directness to tell a CEO what the evidence does and doesn't support. You want speed and ownership, and you'd rather see your work ship in weeks than wait for a quarterly review. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or ready to move here. Nice to have Benchmarks or evaluation frameworks that others in the field use. Experience with human-expert data, human evaluation, or RLHF pipelines. Applied AI work in regulated domains such as finance, payroll, legal, or compliance. Standing in the research community, such as program committees, invited talks, or advisory roles. Total Rewards Our workforce deserves fair and competitive pay that meets them where they are. With scalable benefits, rewards, and perks, our total rewards programs reflect our commitment to inclusivity and access for all. Our salary range reflects gross base salary. For commercial roles with commission eligibility, this figure represents On-Target Earnings (OTE), inclusive of base salary and target commission. Salary ranges are quoted in USD as a consistent global reference. Your offer will be localized to your country's currency using a market-aligned conversion. Final pay is based on objective, job-related criteria including experience, skills, and location. We don't ask about salary history. Offers are based on the role and what you bring to it. Some things you'll enjoy Stock grant opportunities dependent on your role, employment status and location Additional perks and benefits based on your employment status and country Optional flexible working office membership, with IWG At Deel, we're an equal-opportunity employer that values diversity and positively encourage applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of race, religion, sex, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, pregnancy or maternity or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Unless otherwise agreed, we will communicate with job applicants using Deel-specific emails, which include @ deel.com and other acquired company emails like @ payspace.com and @ paygroup.com. You can view the most up-to-date job listings at Deel by visiting our careers page. Deel welcomes persons with disabilities to apply to any of our open roles. We will provide application and/or interview accommodations on request throughout the recruitment, selection and assessment process for applicants with disabilities or other needs. If you require application and/or interview accommodations, please inform our Talent Acquisition Team via email ( [email protected] ) and a team member will be in touch to ensure your equal participation. As part of our hiring process, we primarily rely on interviews and role-related assessments. In limited cases, we may also consider informal background information relevant to the role, in line with our privacy and fairness obligations. This application process may utilise Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT) and AI systems to assist in evaluating candidates based on experience level, technical skills and qualifications. This processing is conducted in compliance with applicable Data Protection, AI Governance and Labour Laws. We ensure human oversight is maintained in all final hiring decisions. Your personal data is not used to train AI models. For more information on how we process your personal data, please see our Recruitment Privacy Policy. For NYC Residents: In accordance with NYC Local Law 144, an independent bias audit has been conducted on AEDT