Director, Applied Research - Corporates Tax & Trade (London)

The Labs Tax & Corporates team is seeking an exceptional Director to lead our applied research and discovery work in the Corporates Tax & Trade product segment. The ONESOURCE suite provides a comprehensive set of direct tax, indirect tax and trade management solutions for corporations in retail, technology, pharma and many other industries. Thomson Reuters recently launched new AI capabilities in this space, including an AI assistant as well as a capability to classify goods & products. The successful candidate will work with the team to further push the envelope of AI in Corporates Tax & Trade, keep delivering solutions that solve customer problems today and discover the art of the possible for AI in Tax & Trade.

About the Role: In this opportunity as an Applied Research Director for Corporates Tax & Trade you will:

• Lead: You will lead a high performing team of 20+ applied scientists and research engineers, setting clear expectations, modeling expected behaviors and actively coaching. You will be a proactive communicator who is excited to share their work and even more excited to highlight the accomplishments of their team.
• Deliver: With a sense of urgency and the desire to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, you will enable your team to solve complex business problems and build solutions with clearly defined outcomes. You will drive the end-to-end model development lifecycle partnering effectively with a collaborative cross-functional team. You will deliver novel features and experiences in the ONESOURCE AI Assistant and other AI product experiences in ONESOURCE.
• Innovate: You will be empowered to try new approaches, learn new technologies, and take informed risks with good judgement. Furthermore, you will encourage and empower your team to do the same. You will foster innovative ideas to solve real-world challenges. You will help lead the way in growing the understanding and adoption of AI, NLP and IR across the enterprise. Key new initiatives include: The ONESOURCE Intelligent Compliance vision which aims to combine end to end compliance capabilities with market leading content, expertise and AI to help customers plan ahead and make directional tax & trade compliance decisions.

You will have oversight on multiple large projects and initiatives across multiple key TR product lines in Corporates Tax & Trade. Work directly with leaders in product management, product marketing, engineering, editorial and UX to prioritize and deliver on key initiatives and continuously improve ways of working. Manage the project portfolio, the budget and prioritize & allocate staff. Confidently represent our work to customers and other external venues. Coach & mentor team members and managers to function as a highly effective team.

If you think you are the right match for the following opportunity, apply after reading the complete description.

About You: Basic qualifications:

• PhD in a relevant discipline or Master’s plus a comparable level of experience.
• 10+ years hands-on experience building AI / NLP systems for commercial applications in a cross functional setting.
• 5+ years of management experience – coaching & developing high-performing teams.
• Experience delivering minimum viable products in a large enterprise environment.
• Experience with building and maintaining production ML systems on AWS.
• You will work directly with customers as well as TR product and technology leaders to define and deliver on the Corporates Tax & Trade AI vision.
• Experience designing and implementing solutions with large language models, including RAG frameworks and agentic frameworks.
• Outstanding communication and data-driven decision-making.

Preferred qualifications:

• 8+ years of management experience – coaching & developing high-performing teams.
• Experience innovating state-of-the-art research to solve applied, real-world problems.
• Publications at relevant venues such as ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, NeurIPS, ICLR, SIGIR, ICML, KDD or similar conferences and venues.

What’s in it For You?

• Hybrid Work Model: We’ve adopted a flexible hybrid working environment (2-3 days a week in the office depending on the role) for our office-based roles while delivering a seamless experience that is digitally and physically connected.
• Flexibility & Work-Life Balance: Flex My Way is a set of supportive workplace policies designed to help manage personal and professional responsibilities, whether caring for family, giving back to the community, or finding time to refresh and reset. This builds upon our flexible work arrangements, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year, empowering employees to achieve a better work-life balance.
• Career Development and Growth: By fostering a culture of continuous learning and skill development, we prepare our talent to tackle tomorrow’s challenges and deliver real-world solutions. Our Grow My Way programming and skills-first approach ensures you have the tools and knowledge to grow, lead, and thrive in an AI-enabled future.
• Industry Competitive Benefits: We offer comprehensive benefit plans to include flexible vacation, two company-wide Mental Health Days off, access to the Headspace app, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, employee incentive programs, and resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.
• Culture: Globally recognized, award-winning reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work-life balance, and more. We live by our values: Obsess over our Customers, Compete to Win, Challenge (Y)our Thinking, Act Fast / Learn Fast, and Stronger Together.
• Social Impact: Make an impact in your community with our Social Impact Institute. We offer employees two paid volunteer days off annually and opportunities to get involved with pro-bono consulting projects and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives.
• Making a Real-World Impact: We are one of the few companies globally that helps its customers pursue justice, truth, and transparency. Together, with the professionals and institutions we serve, we help uphold the rule of law, turn the wheels of commerce, catch bad actors, report the facts, and provide trusted, unbiased information to people all over the world.

About Us Thomson Reuters informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. We serve professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Our products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news. We are powered by the talents of 26,000 employees across more than 70 countries, where everyone has a chance to contribute and grow professionally in flexible work environments. At a time when objectivity, accuracy, fairness, and transparency are under attack, we consider it our duty to pursue them. Sound exciting? Join us and help shape the industries that move society forward. As a global business, we rely on the unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences of all employees to deliver on our business goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer providing a drug-free workplace. We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law.