ML Tech Lead Manager

ABOUT ABRIDGE Abridge was founded in 2018 with the mission of powering deeper understanding in healthcare. Our AI-powered platform was purpose-built for medical conversations, improving clinical documentation efficiencies while enabling clinicians to focus on what matters most—their patients. Our enterprise-grade technology transforms patient-clinician conversations into structured clinical notes in real-time, with deep EMR integrations. Powered by Linked Evidence and our purpose-built, auditable AI, we are the only company that maps AI-generated summaries to ground truth, helping providers quickly trust and verify the output. As pioneers in generative AI for healthcare, we are setting the industry standards for the responsible deployment of AI across health systems. We are a growing team of practicing MDs, AI scientists, PhDs, creatives, technologists, and engineers working together to empower people and make care make more sense. We have offices located in the Mission District in San Francisco, the SoHo neighborhood of New York, and East Liberty in Pittsburgh. THE ROLE Abridge is building an AI platform for clinical conversations to solve the administrative burdens of medicine, freeing clinicians to focus on patient care. Our technology is rapidly expanding to support clinicians through a richer suite of interactions—helping them to make better informed decisions and to navigate medicine’s financial processes. Abridge improves patient outcomes and access to care, enables clinicians to focus on what matters most, and lowers costs for health systems. We are seeking a ML Tech Lead Manager to drive the next generation of our AI platform—scientifically rigorous, reliable in production, and optimized for the real-world complexity of healthcare. In this role, you will lead a team of ML Scientists who leverage natural language processing techniques and large language models to build compelling products and conduct scientific research. You and your team will be working closely with engineering, product, and clinicians. You will shape research strategy, ensure translation of research into production systems, and set the scientific standard for how Abridge advances state-of-the-art NLP for medicine. This is a unique opportunity to lead a high-impact group of applied scientists, building foundational methods and mentoring top talent at the intersection of machine learning and healthcare. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Lead, mentor, and scale a high-impact team of NLP/ML researchers, fostering a culture of technical rigor, creativity, and scientific excellence. - Set R&D strategy that aligns with company priorities in areas like: - Clinical NLP, summarization, and dialogue understanding. - Agentic capabilities, retrieval-augmented generation, reasoning, and tool-use. - Multimodal and multilingual algorithms. - Reinforcement learning, preference optimization, and reward modeling. - Robustness, safety, and evaluation of LLM-powered systems. - Grow talent pipelines by recruiting world-class researchers and nurturing career development through coaching and mentorship. - Balance long-term vision with near-term impact, ensuring research not only advances the field but also translates into product-grade systems. - Partner with engineering teams and clinicians to operationalize novel algorithms into clinician-facing workflows, optimizing both quality and efficiency. - Ensure safety and robustness in deployment, shaping the standards for evaluation in clinical AI. - Represent Abridge in the global ML/NLP research community through publications, conference presentations, and industry/academic partnerships. WHAT YOU’LL BRING - A strong researcher and technologist with 7+ years of experience in machine learning/NLP, with a strong track record of impactful publications and deployed systems. - 3+ years of experience as technical lead for a project of 4 or more individuals. - 2+ years of direct management experience, managing Researchers and Applied Scientists. - Deeply technical, with expertise across NLP and LLMs—e.g., pre-training/post-training/SFT/RL, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), reasoning capabilities, multilinguality, multimodality, synthetic data generation, noise robustness, judges, and evaluation. - Comfortable bridging research, product, and engineering, translating novel ideas into robust, scalable systems that deliver real-world impact. You think about how research translates into user impact, and have experience aligning scientific direction with business and product goals. You have shipped models, designed benchmarks, and debugged real-world failures (from data drift to brittle eval pipelines). - Have fluency with libraries for scientific computing (e.g. SciPy, Numpy) and machine learning (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, Scikit-learn, Pandas). - A thoughtful leader: you foster a feedback-rich culture, set a high bar for scientific rigor, and empower your team through mentorship, clear vision, and mutual trust. - Up-to-date on the latest in NLP and ML research, with excitement for continuous learning. - Motivated to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment where your team’s science has direct clinical impact. We value people who are eager to learn new things and recognize that great team members might not perfectly match a job description. If you’re interested in the role but aren’t sure whether or not you’re a good fit, we’d still like to hear from you. Must be willing to work from our SF office at least 3x per week This position requires a commitment to a hybrid work model, with the expectation of coming into the office a minimum of (3) three times per week. Relocation assistance is available for candidates willing to move to San Francisco. WHY WORK AT ABRIDGE? At Abridge, we’re transforming healthcare delivery experiences with generative AI, enabling clinicians and patients to connect in deeper, more meaningful ways. Our mission is clear: to power deeper understanding in healthcare. We’re driving real, lasting change, with millions of medical conversations processed each month. Joining Abridge means stepping into a fast-paced, high-growth startup where your contributions truly make a difference. Our culture requires extreme ownership—every employee has the ability to (and is expected to) make an impact on our customers and our business. Beyond individual impact, you will have the opportunity to work alongside a team of curious, high-achieving people in a supportive environment where success is shared, growth is constant, and feedback fuels progress. At Abridge, it’s not just what we do—it’s how we do it. Every decision is rooted in empathy, always prioritizing the needs of clinicians and patients. We’re committed to supporting your growth, both professionally and personally. Whether it's flexible work hours, an inclusive culture, or ongoing learning opportunities, we are here to help you thrive and do the best work of your life. If you are ready to make a meaningful impact alongside passionate people who care deeply about what they do, Abridge is the place for you. HOW WE TAKE CARE OF ABRIDGERS: - Generous Time Off: 14 paid holidays, flexible PTO for salaried employees, and accrued time off for hourly employees - Comprehensive Health Plans: Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage for all full-time employees and their families. - Generous HSA Contribution: If you choose a High Deductible Health Plan, Abridge makes monthly contributions to your HSA. - Paid Parental Leave: Generous paid parental leave for all full-time employees. - Family Forming Benefits: Resources and financial support to help you build your family. - 401(k) Matching: Contribution matching to help invest in your future. - Personal Device Allowance: Tax free funds for personal device usage. - Pre-tax Benefits: Access to Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Commuter Benefits. - Lifestyle Wallet: Monthly contributions for fitness, professional development, coworking, and more. - Mental Health Support: Dedicated access to therapy and coaching to help you reach your goals. - Sabbatical Leave: Paid Sabbatical Leave after 5 years of employment. - Compensation and Equity: Competitive compensation and equity grants for full time employees. - ... and much more! EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER Abridge is an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants equally without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or disability. STAYING SAFE - PROTECT YOURSELF FROM RECRUITMENT FRAUD We are aware of individuals and entities fraudulently representing themselves as Abridge recruiters and/or hiring managers. Abridge will never ask for financial information or payment, or for personal information such as bank account number or social security number during the job application or interview process. Any emails from the Abridge recruiting team will come from an @abridge.com http://abridge.com email address. You can learn more about how to protect yourself from these types of fraud by referring to this article https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/05/scammers-are-hijacking-job-ads-heres-how-spot-fakes. Please exercise caution and cease communications if something feels suspicious about your interactions.