What is a Research Scientist at Yelp?
As a Research Scientist (often referred to internally as an Applied Scientist) at Yelp, you are not just analyzing data in a vacuum; you are the engine behind the intelligence that connects millions of users with great local businesses. This role sits at the intersection of rigorous academic research and practical product engineering. You are responsible for building the algorithms that power Search, Recommendations, Ads, and Trust & Safety.
The impact of this role is highly visible. When a user searches for "best sushi near me," the ranking model you optimize determines what they see. When a business owner looks at their ad performance, your predictive models drive that efficiency. You will work on complex challenges involving Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand review sentiment, Computer Vision to analyze user photos, and Graph Learning to map user-business interactions.
Unlike pure academic research roles, Yelp prioritizes applied science. This means you will own the full lifecycle of your models—from ideation and prototyping to offline evaluation, A/B testing, and productionization. You will work in a collaborative environment where the goal is to ship code that improves the user experience, making this an ideal role for scientists who want to see their work deployed at scale.



