Principal Applied Scientist

About the teamThe Agentic AI team at Zillow is at the forefront of transforming the real estate industry by helping millions of people use AI technologies to find their next home. We aim to redefine the home shopping and transaction experience by providing an always-on assistant that integrates deep user insights and sophisticated reasoning. By embedding domain knowledge and specialized expertise in these assistants, we empower home buyers and real estate professionals to gain efficiency while maintaining Zillow's competitive edge. This lean, customer-focused team consists of scientists and engineers working together to deliver a delightful customer experience. We strongly believe in accountability, collaboration, and transparency.

About the role

Zillow is looking for a Principal Applied Scientist on the Agentic AI team to research and develop advanced multimodal foundational technologies. They will be hands-on in prototyping ideas, evaluating, and deploying models to Zillow's highly scalable infrastructure platforms. They’ll be developing perception and language understanding, deep reasoning, and reinforcement learning to handle AI agent decision-making. 

As a Principal Applied Scientist in the Agentic AI team, you will: 

• Design, prototype, and develop multi-agent systems that are capable of highly autonomous and context-aware interactions

• Use reinforcement learning methods to train agents that reason to adaptively collaborate, compete, or negotiate to fulfill user tasks

• Personalize using user behavior, context signals, and real-time environmental data to fulfill individual needs

• Mentor and guide scientists and engineers in using the right technologies for agentic AI solutions and foster a culture of innovation and responsible AI usage

• Distill complex research findings and system designs into actionable insights for diverse audiences—including executives

• Remain on the cutting edge of agentic AI emerging paradigms, driving product innovation

• Serve as the focal point for science projects, driving alignment on timelines, and prioritization

• Represent the team at conferences, publish in top-tier journals and champion internal best practices

• Continuously refine processes for experimentation, A/B testing, and production rollouts to balance rapid innovation with reliability and responsible deployment.

This role has been categorized as a Remote position. “Remote” employees do not have a permanent corporate office workplace and, instead, work from a physical location of their choice, which must be identified to the Company. U.S. employees may live in any of the 50 United States, with limited exceptions.

In California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Washington state, and Washington DC the standard base pay range for this role is $186,700.00 - $298,300.00 Annually. This base pay range is specific to California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Washington state, and Washington DC and may not be applicable to other locations.

In addition to a competitive base salary this position is also eligible for equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance and location.

Who you are

As a Principal Applied Scientist, you are a roll-up-the-sleeves and get-it-done researcher who can marry scientific rigor with large-scale engineering. We are looking for someone who has:

• A Ph.D. or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field with emphasis on reinforcement learning, AI planning, or natural language processing

• 7+ years of hands-on work building large-scale, high-impact solutions—ideally encompassing agent-based systems, multi-agent collaboration, or similar paradigms

• Experience developing dialogue systems capable of long conversations, multi-step reasoning, context-rich decision-making

• Experience deploying and scaling AI services capable of handling hundreds of millions of daily interactions with high availability, low latency, and robust fault tolerance

• Track record of publishing high-impact research in top AI/ML venues

Get to know us

Zillow is reimagining real estate to make home a reality for more and more people.

As the most-visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow® and its affiliates help movers find and win their home through digital solutions, first class partners, and easier buying, selling, financing and renting experiences. Millions of people visit Zillow Group sites every month to start their home search, and now they can rely on Zillow to help make it easier to move. The work we do helps people get home and no matter what job you're in, you will play a critical role in making home a reality for more and more people.

Our efforts to streamline the real estate transaction are supported by a deep-rooted culture of innovation, our passion to redefine the employee experience, a fundamental commitment to Equity and Belonging, and world-class benefits. These benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life, and disability coverages as well as parental leave, family benefits, retirement contributions, and paid time off. We’re also setting the standard for work experiences of the future, where our employees are supported in doing their best work and living a flexible, well-balanced life. But don’t just take our word for it. Read recent reviews on Glassdoor and recent recognition from multiple organizations, including: the 100 Best Companies to Work For, Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award, Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Corporate Equity Index, and TIME 100 Most Influential Companies list.

Zillow Group is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment with the best employees. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please contact your recruiter directly.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable state and local law.

Applicants who receive job offers from Zillow Group will be asked to sign a Proprietary Rights Agreement which includes confidentiality, intellectual property assignment, customer and employee non-solicitation, and non-competition provisions. If you are contacted for a role at Zillow Group and wish to review a copy of the Proprietary Rights Agreement prior to receiving an offer, you may request a copy from your Recruiter.