Lead Data Scientist

Become a part of our caring community and help us put health first
 The Enterprise AI organization at Humana is a pioneering force, driving AI innovation across our Insurance and CenterWell business segments. By collaborating with world-leading experts, we are at the forefront of delivering cutting-edge AI technologies for improving care quality and experience of millions of consumers. We are actively seeking top talent to develop robust and reusable AI modules and pipelines, ensuring adherence to best practices in accountable AI for effective risk management and measurement. Join us in shaping the future of healthcare through AI excellence.

We are seeking a Lead Data Scientist to define and drive the new frontier of AI-Human interaction. You will lead the design of adaptive, human-aware AI systems that learn form, respond to, and collaborate with humans in real-world environments. This role blends cutting-edge research, robust experimentation, and product-focused execution to improve user trust, alignment, usability, and agent cooperation across intelligent interfaces.

Key Responsibilities 

• Develop and own ML pipelines for evaluating and improving human-AI interaction across modalities (text, speech, UI/UX feedback, behavioral signals)

• Design adaptive models for intent recognition, dialog state tracking, preference learning, and multi-turn personalization

• Lead human-in-the-loop data collection strategies and feedback integration to fine-tune agent behaviors

• Partner with UX, engineering, and safety teams to embed explainability, user control, and alignment into AI systems

• Develop and monitor human-centered evaluation metrics (e.g., helpfulness, latency, trust calibration, long-term engagement)

• Construct causal inference and A/B testing to assess impact of interaction strategies on behavior and outcomes

• Mentor a team of data scientists and collaborate with AI researchers and product leaders on foundational interaction improvements

• Experience in creating reports, projections, models, and presentations to executives

Technical skills

• Proficiency in SQL, Python, and data analysis/data mining tools.

• Experience with machine learning frameworks like Pytorch, JAX, LangChain, or LangGraph

• Experience with high performance, large-scale ML systems

• Experience with language modeling with transformers

• Experience designing human-centered evaluation protocols, metrics, and pipelines

• Experience with +5 years of experience in applied ML, with at least 3+ in conversational AI, human-in-the-loop systems, or agent UX optimization

• Experience with large-scale ETL

Use your skills to make an impact
 

Required Qualifications

• Master's Degree and 4+ years of experience in research/ML engineering or an applied research scientist position preferably with a focus on developing production-ready AI solutions

• 2+ years of experience leading development of AI/ML systems

• Proven track record building production-grade AI models with strong UX and behavioral outcomes

• Expertise in supervised learning, reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), or preference modeling

• Strong communication skills with ability to bridge data science, product, and engineering

Preferred Qualifications

• Ph.D. in in Machine Learning, Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, NLP, or related field

• LLM-based agent or copilot systems (e.g., OpenAI GPT agents, Claude, Gemini, Mistral, open-agent frameworks)

• Experience working with voice assistants, AR/VR interfaces, or embodied agents

• Familiarity with ethical considerations and safety alignment in interactive systems

• Contributions to human-AI interaction research or open-source tools

Additional Information

Location/Work Style: Remote US

Why Humana?

At Humana, we know your well-being is important to you, and it's important to us too.  That's why we're committed to making resources available to you that will enable you to become happier, healthier, and more productive in all areas of your life. Just to name a few:

• Work-Life Balance

• Generous PTO package

• Health benefits effective day 1

• Annual Incentive Plan

• 401K - Excellent company match

• Well-being program 

• Paid Volunteer Time Off

If you share our passion for helping people, we likely have the right place for you at Humana.

Work at Home Guidance

To ensure Home or Hybrid Home/Office associates' ability to work effectively, the self-provided internet service of Home or Hybrid Home/Office associates must meet the following criteria:

• At minimum, a download speed of 25 Mbps and an upload speed of 10 Mbps is recommended; wireless, wired cable or DSL connection is suggested

• Satellite, cellular and microwave connection can be used only if approved by leadership

• Associates who live and work from Home in the state of California, Illinois, Montana, or South Dakota will be provided a bi-weekly payment for their internet expense.

• Humana will provide Home or Hybrid Home/Office associates with telephone equipment appropriate to meet the business requirements for their position/job.

• Work from a dedicated space lacking ongoing interruptions to protect member PHI / HIPAA information

SSN Alert Statement

Humana values personal identity protection. Please be aware that applicants may be asked to provide their Social Security Number, if it is not already on file. When required, an email will be sent from with instructions on how to add the information into your official application on Humana's secure website.

Travel: While this is a remote position, occasional travel to Humana's offices for training or meetings may be required.

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Pay Range

The compensation range below reflects a good faith estimate of starting base pay for full time (40 hours per week) employment at the time of posting. The pay range may be higher or lower based on geographic location and individual pay will vary based on demonstrated job related skills, knowledge, experience, education, certifications, etc.$142,300 - $195,700 per yearThis job is eligible for a bonus incentive plan. This incentive opportunity is based upon company and/or individual performance.

Description of Benefits

Humana, Inc. and its affiliated subsidiaries (collectively, "Humana") offers competitive benefits that support whole-person well-being. Associate benefits are designed to encourage personal wellness and smart healthcare decisions for you and your family while also knowing your life extends outside of work. Among our benefits, Humana provides medical, dental and vision benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan, time off (including paid time off, company and personal holidays, volunteer time off, paid parental and caregiver leave), short-term and long-term disability, life insurance and many other opportunities.Application Deadline:
About us
 Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) is committed to putting health first – for our teammates, our customers and our company. Through our Humana insurance services and CenterWell healthcare services, we make it easier for the millions of people we serve to achieve their best health – delivering the care and service they need, when they need it. These efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare, Medicaid, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large.

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Equal Opportunity Employer

It is the policy of Humana not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, disability or protected veteran status. It is also the policy of Humana to take affirmative action, in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and VEVRAA, to employ and to advance in employment individuals with disability or protected veteran status, and to base all employment decisions only on valid job requirements. This policy shall apply to all employment actions, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, upgrading, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, recall, termination, rates of pay or other forms of compensation and selection for training, including apprenticeship, at all levels of employment.

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