At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation.

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

Job Title: Senior Data Scientist

Role Summary

F5 is seeking an experienced Senior Data Scientist, specializing in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs), to drive innovation and enhance F5’s data-driven decision-making capabilities. This role will focus on developing and deploying intelligent tools using cutting-edge AI/LLM technologies to strengthen our security measures, optimize systems, and align decision-making processes with business priorities. You will work hands-on to operationalize data science techniques, contributing to scalable solutions and improving system reliability.

In this role, you will collaborate with cross-functional teams, including researchers, software engineers, and product leaders, to deliver predictive insights, end-to-end solutions, and secure deployments for AI-powered platforms. The ideal candidate combines technical acumen, critical reasoning, collaboration skills, and a passion for leveraging AI to transform business and system operations.

Key Responsibilities

AI/ML Model Development and Operationalization

• Research, design, develop, fine-tune, and evaluate LLMs and other deep learning models to enhance F5’s AI capabilities.

• Create solutions for tasks such as automated red-teaming, vulnerability detection, adversarial attack simulation, and intelligent defense mechanisms.

• Deploy robust, scalable, and secure AI/LLM-powered models and tools within F5’s platforms, ensuring alignment with business objectives.

• Optimize models for inference speed, cost-efficiency, and resource utilization in production environments.

End-to-End Data Science and MLOps

• Develop pipelines for MLOps workflows, including data transformation, training/fine-tuning, validation, deployment, and monitoring.

• Build scalable analytical processes and tools to handle large, complex datasets efficiently and securely throughout their lifecycle.

• Monitor model performance and behavior in production, proactively managing safety concerns, alignment, and vulnerabilities.

Collaborative Insight Generation

• Collaborate with a cross-functional team of researchers, engineers, and product leaders to prioritize AI/ML feature development and align models with customer needs.

• Translate stakeholder objectives into technical solution requirements, ensuring clarity and understanding between technical and non-technical teams.

• Communicate findings and solutions through visualization, documentation, and presentations that enable data-driven decision-making.

Security and Innovation

• Ensure awareness of AI/LLM security vulnerabilities, such as prompt injection or data poisoning, and apply mitigation strategies.

• Contribute to research on Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) for improving AI models aligned with business priorities.

• Investigate AI/ML advancements and integrate state-of-the-art solutions to proactively address emerging security challenges.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science,Artificial Intelligence,Machine Learning,Statistics, or a related quantitative field.

• 5-8 years of experience designing, training, and deploying AI/ML models, with hands-on experience working with Large Language Models (LLMs).

• Strong programming skills in Python and extensive experience with ML/DL frameworks such as Tensor Flow, Py Torch, or similar.

• Proven track record in deploying complex AI/ML systems into production environments, including secure deployments.

• Familiarity with AI/LLM libraries such as Hugging Face Transformers, Lang Chain, or equivalent frameworks.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to address complex data challenges effectively.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience fine-tuning and deploying large-scale language models, including frameworks like vLLM or TGI for LLM optimization.

• Knowledge of LLM security vulnerabilities and the implementation of mitigation techniques.

• Familiarity with vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate) and their use in AI workflows.

• Experience with cloud platforms and distributed computing for large-scale AI operations.

• Knowledge of statistical analysis, regression techniques, clustering methods, and time series analysis.

• Hands-on experience with RLHF to improve alignment and enhance capability of LLMs.

Why Join F5’s Data Science Team

At F5, the Data Science team plays a critical role in driving innovation, research, and security enhancements. As a Data Scientist at F5, you will:

• Develop transformative technologies and improve system decision-making at scale.

• Collaborate with some of the best minds in the industry to operationalize cutting-edge AI/ML techniques.

• Work in an inclusive and dynamic environment that values innovation, diversity, and collaboration.

• Advance your career by engaging in mission-critical AI/ML projects that make a real-world impact.

What Success Looks Like

A successful candidate demonstrates leadership and expertise by:

• Delivering end-to-end AI solutions with scalability, robustness, and innovation across F5’s platforms.

• Collaborating effectively with cross-functional teams to align business goals with technical solutions.

• Applying statistical methods and predictive analytics to deliver actionable insights across F5’s operations.

• Proactively identifying opportunities to enhance system reliability and reduce vulnerabilities within AI solutions.

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination. F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting accommodations@f5.com.