Principal Researcher (f/m/d) - Foundation and World Models on Structured Business Data

In SAP’s Business AI Research, you drive breakthrough foundation and world models tailored for structured business data. You lead a small team of researchers and engineers to define the research agenda, collaborate with academia, and publish impactful work. You translate breakthroughs into publications and guide data-driven, scalable solutions for ERP-like contexts. This role blends deep scientific inquiry with strategic collaboration across industry and academia, shaping AI methods for business applications.

• great benefits
• wellbeing focus
• flexible working models
• international team
• personal development opportunities

• Define the research agenda for a small squad of researchers and engineers
• Advance foundation models and world models for structured data and business problems
• Collaborate with domain experts and data owners to frame problem statements and datasets
• Publish benchmarks and models at top conferences and in open source
• Translate research breakthroughs into publications and drive thought leadership
• Coordinate with SAP-RPT-1 team to align with community best practices
• Foster collaborations with academic partners and supervise PhD students during internships
• Ensure alignment of internal initiatives with industry best practices

• PhD in Computer Science, AI, physics, mathematics or related disciplines
• Strong research record with publications in top-tier venues
• Extensive experience with machine learning on structured data
• Proficiency in Python and ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow)
• Experience with knowledge graphs and ERP-domain contexts is a plus
• Understanding of foundation models and world models and their application to business data
• Experience with collaboration between industry and academia
• Project leadership and strategic mindset

• collaboration
• strategic thinking
• strong communication
• Foundation Models / Machine Learning on structured data
• World Models
• Causal AI (preferable)