Job Description

Senior Research Scientist, Derin

Department: Data Science and AI

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: London, UK

Description

Surgo Health is building the Behavioral Intelligence layer for healthcare — revealing why people behave as they do, predicting what they will do next, and helping organizations make the decisions that change outcomes.

A Public Benefit Corporation grounded in two decades of global health experience, Surgo generates foundational behavioral data that reveals the unseen why and builds the AI products that powers decision-grade insights at population scale — equipping healthcare organizations, funders, and public agencies to act on what actually shapes health outcomes: people's beliefs, motivations, and barriers.

From predicting who will enroll and remain in a clinical trial, to understanding what drives treatment decisions, to designing more effective health programs, Surgo brings the missing human layer into decisions traditionally made with clinical data alone.

Backed by 40+ peer-reviewed publications and trusted by partners including the Gates Foundation, J&J, Takeda, Pivotal Ventures, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Surgo is building a future where healthcare organizations don't just understand human behavior, but anticipate it — making healthcare more personal, precise, and effective for everyone.

Role Summary

Derin is a behavioral science-backed, AI-powered adaptive research platform built for healthcare that conducts in-depth interviews to reveal the unseen “why” behind health decisions - with the depth and rigor of expert-led research, at unprecedented scale and speed. As a Senior Scientist on the Derin team, you'll innovate on the science behind how Derin asks questions, how we prove it works, and how we keep respondents safe. You'll partner closely with Engineering, Product, and Client Engagement to take Derin from a breakthrough product to the category-defining standard for behavioral data collection.

What you’ll achieve

• Accelerate the science of Derin conversational design, ensuring the product can serve many clients and use cases.
• Deliver on the scientific roadmap for Derin's interviewing brain: how it probes, prioritises, and adapts.
• Build industry-leading respondent safeguarding to IRB and healthcare standards.
• Perform validation studies on Derin
• Publish peer-reviewed papers, white papers, and client-ready evidence.
• Build and maintain the rubrics, annotations, and eval pipelines we use to judge Derin performance.
• Provide expert guidance to your colleagues; in turn, continuously learn and adapt the product based on the needs of your colleagues.

About you

• PhD or equivalent research experience demonstrated by publications in a behavior-relevant domain (behavioral science, AI, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, decision science, or closely related).
• 3+ years post-PhD / applied experience, preferably in an industry or product setting.
• Expertise and passion for qualitative and quantitative research methods (surveys and interviews)
• Hands-on fluency designing, evaluating, and iterating on LLM products, including evals, validation, and common chatbot challenges.
• Demonstrable curiosity about how LLMs and agents will change how behavioral science is done.
• We love people who can take ideas and bring them to life, so some fluency in engineering/development is a big plus (we use Azure Databricks)
• Excellent communication, both scientific and within a fast-paced environment.
• Bias to ship: fast, pragmatic, and able to make calls under deadline pressure without cutting scientific corners.
• Health or life sciences domain experience is a strong plus.

Location: This role is based in London with 2 days/week in office (Mondays and Thursdays)

Travel: Limited travel to conferences and Washington, DC headquarters

Benefits

What you’ll love about Surgo:

• A collaborative, mission-driven team
• Competitive salary and equity compensation
• Flexible PTO
• Pension contribution match up to 4%
• 3 months paid parental leave for primary caregiver
• Public Benefit Corporation with an impact mission

Surgo Health is committed to fair, equitable, and transparent practices. Compensation packages are based on several factors such as skill set, prior relevant experience, education, certifications, and market considerations. In addition to base compensation, individuals may be eligible for annual performance-based bonuses and equity (if applicable). We aim to pay salaries that are competitive, benchmarked against companies that are similar in stage, size, and market to Surgo Health. Our recruiter may be able to share more about our total rewards offerings and the specific salary range for the relevant role during the hiring process.

Our hiring philosophy

We hire for passion and core competencies.

We look for problem solvers and lateral thinkers.

We love it if you have done different things with your time.

If you think you are ideal for this position, write to us even if your experience doesn’t match all the requirements listed above.

Equal Opportunity and Diversity Policy

Surgo believes a diverse, inclusive staff makes a stronger team and more impactful organization and we are committed to building and developing this team and environment. Qualified people of all races, ethnicities, cultures, ages, sex, genders, sexual orientation, gender identities and expressions, languages, social class, marital status, religions, veterans status, and disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.