BuzzFeed.com AI Tech Fellow (Remote, United States)

United States

About BuzzFeed, Inc.

BuzzFeed, Inc. (Nasdaq: BZFD) is home to the best of the internet with a mission to spread joy and truth. Across entertainment, news, food, pop culture, and commerce, our brands drive conversation and inspire what audiences watch, read, and buy now — and into the future. Born on the internet in 2006, BuzzFeed, Inc. is committed to improving it: providing trusted, quality, brand-safe entertainment to hundreds of millions of people; making content on the internet more inclusive, empathetic, and creative; and inspiring our audience to live better lives. 

Business Area: Content

Job Category: Editorial

Hourly Range: $20.00- $28.99 an hour USD

Union Status: Non-Union 

BuzzFeed Inc. is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. We reserve the ability to adjust the final compensation for this role based on the final candidate's experience, skillset, certifications, and geography.

The Role

The BuzzFeed Fellowship is a full-time program for aspiring and hungry technologists eager to experiment with the latest AI technology to make playful and conversation-starting work. The program is both a crash course in how to utilize various AI tools as well as a chance to regularly contribute to BuzzFeed’s ongoing AI offerings. This role is not limited to engineers, but the ability to work creatively with no code tools, apps and services to build unique AI content and experiences are welcome.

Fellows need a strong grasp of the nuanced cultural conversations happening all over the internet and should be excited about contributing to those conversations — if not starting new ones — via AI-enhanced/generated content. We’re looking for people who are fascinated by social media, human psychology, and trends of all kinds. Fellows should be prepared to work across mediums and formats — AI image generators, lists of AI-generated images, gamified chatbots, filters, videos and new formats we haven't seen yet made possible with generative AI.

Fellows will work with and learn from members of the BuzzFeed team — some of the smartest, weirdest, most creative “professionals” out there including members of product, content, and engineering teams. This is the perfect opportunity for someone interested in pursuing a career in tech and/or digital media. You won’t be running errands for senior staff, or working on tech debt, you will be pitching ideas, taking assignments, brainstorming, collaborating, and experimenting with generative AI tech to help create content, workflows, and/or tools that will be published across BuzzFeed’s network.

The Fellowship is fun and inspiring, but also fast-paced and challenging. 

This is a three-month contract paid position, with the ability to extend the contract beyond three months. The hourly range is from $20-28/hour depending on technical skills and experience. The Fellowship allows candidates to work fully remotely in select locations, but there will also be opportunities to work from our NY or LA locations.  

We’re recruiting positions for Fall/Winter Fellowship start times and applications will be assessed on a rolling basis.

You Have

We're looking for culture, internet, and technology obsessives with a passion for the things people are sharing, liking, recommending and talking about. You should also have:

• A positive, curious, playful disposition
• A genuine, wide-eyed love of internet culture and digital trends of all types

Familiarity with — and ideally experience using — current and emerging AI creation tools (chatGPT, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, Replicate, Hugging Face, Claude, Gemini, Runway ML or similar.)

In addition, you should demonstrate the following:

Some examples of creating AI Content (it doesn’t have to be formal — anything from published articles to creative Twitter/Reddit threads to personal TikTok accounts)

• Ability to build AI Prompts
• An understanding of and POV about the current landscape of AI and LLM tools
• Ability to handle critical feedback and improve from it
• Eagerness to collaborate
• Ability to interpret key audience data points relating to your work and use it to adapt and evolve your approach moving forward
• An interest in social platforms and what drives people to share content
• Curiosity and excitement about social platforms (TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Tumblr, etc.)

Nice to have, but not necessary:

• Experience with NextJS, React or Python
• Knowledge of working with APIs
• Experience with video editing tools 
• AI Model Building Experience, LoRAs, ComfyUI etc

If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at applicationhelp@buzzfeed.com. Requests received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

To Apply

Please submit the following when applying to be an AI Tech Fellow:

• Instead of a formal cover letter, describe an AI-powered piece of content or social media account that you found particularly innovative or impactful. What made it stand out to you, and how do you think it pushes the boundaries of what's possible with AI in content creation? How might you build upon or adapt this concept for BuzzFeed's audience? Share a link to the original piece.
• OPTIONAL: Make a BuzzFeed.com Community profile, and create 1-2 posts that reflect your voice and interests. The posts should include some AI-generated content (text or images). When you submit your posts, include “This is for the Editorial Fellowship.” in the description. If you publish posts, please include the links in your application materials!
• Provide links to a portfolio or public social media accounts if applicable
• Attach a resume — keep it to one page!

Life at BuzzFeed, Inc.

We celebrate inclusion and are committed to equal-opportunity employment. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability, or any other protected category.

You can expect:

• A supportive, inclusive atmosphere on a team that values your contributions.
• Opportunities for personal and professional growth through work experience, offerings from our in-house Learning Team, our Employee Resource Groups, and more.

Note: BuzzFeed Inc. offers remote/flexible work (unless specified to be required to be in-person) and open to hiring remote candidates who are residents in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, MI, MS, MT, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, TX, VA, WA, and WV. For non sales roles, we can also hire in AK, AR, AZ, ID, KS, MO, ND, SC, and VT.