Member of Technical Staff, Research Scientist
Job Description
About Crosby
Crosby is built on a simple conviction: a great legal system is the watermark of a great society — and the best legal work comes from combining human expertise with the right technology, not replacing one with the other.
Crosby is the first AI-native law firm, helping ambitious companies like Cursor, Ramp, and Cognition sign commercial contracts faster.
Legal work is both art and science, and we're mapping the frontier between the two — codifying what can be systematized, amplifying human judgment where it matters most. That's why the right way to bring AI into law isn't to sell software and walk away. It's to own the outcome together: higher-quality work, delivered faster. We build proprietary tools and human-in-the-loop workflows that change what's possible for corporate legal teams.
Crosby was founded by Ryan (Stanford Law, Cooley, startup GC) and John (Penn, first X employees at Ramp). We work together, in person, in New York City — because the best ideas still happen in the same room. Help us transform one of society's most important industries.
About the role
As an AI Researcher at Crosby, you'll play a critical role in advancing the capabilities of our AI systems. You’ll explore, develop, and apply state-of-the-art techniques in LLMs and applied NLP to improve how our platform understands, analyzes, and reasons over complex legal documents.
You’ll work closely with engineers, data scientists, and legal experts to translate research ideas into production systems. This role is for someone who is deeply curious, technically rigorous, and motivated to push the boundaries of what AI can do in high-stakes domains.
We also publish our work on legal AI at intelligence.crosby.ai — take a look at the kinds of problems you'd be working on.
What you'll do
Advance model capabilities: Research and develop novel approaches to improve performance on tasks like document understanding, clause extraction, reasoning, and negotiation.
Experiment and iterate: Design and run experiments to evaluate new architectures, prompting strategies, fine-tuning approaches, and retrieval methods.
Bridge research and production: Work closely with engineering teams to translate research insights into scalable, production-ready systems.
Improve evaluation: Develop benchmarks, datasets, and evaluation frameworks to rigorously measure model performance.
Leverage modern AI techniques: Stay at the frontier of LLMs and applied AI, incorporating new methods where they meaningfully improve outcomes.
Collaborate cross-functionally: Partner with engineering, product, and legal teams to ensure research efforts align with real-world needs.
Who You Are
3–7+ years of experience in AI research, machine learning, or applied NLP
Strong foundation in machine learning, deep learning, and statistical methods
Hands-on experience working with LLMs, transformers, and modern NLP techniques
Experience running experiments and evaluating model performance in a rigorous, structured way
Proficient in Python and ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or similar
Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to translate ambiguous challenges into research directions
Effective communicator who can collaborate across technical and non-technical teams
Curious, driven, and excited about applying research to real-world, high-impact problems
Equal Opportunity
Crosby is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the New York City Fair Chance Act.
Pursuant to New York Labor Law Section 194-b, the US Pay Range for this position is listed in the job post. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, experience, and qualifications.