{"id":947598,"url":"https://alion.io/job/afterquery-research-fellow","title":"Research Fellow","company":{"id":668886,"name":"AfterQuery","domain":"afterquery.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/afterquery","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":86,"open_postings":11,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.545,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-03T05:54:40Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":16000,"max":16000,"currency":"USD","period":"month","gross":null,"usd_annual":192000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Anthropic","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"Post-training","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"SFT","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-15T18:53:56Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-15","last_verified_at":"2026-11-03T15:58:24Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":49,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":49},"description":"About AfterQuery\nAfterQuery is an applied research lab curating data solutions for foundation model development. We serve every frontier AI lab with the mission of delivering the best data to power the best models. In doing so, we can make expertise that once took a lifetime to build available to anyone who needs it.\nOur customers are the ones building the foundation models themselves and our work sits directly in the loop of how those systems improve. This is a rare opportunity to join a company at a defining moment in AI. Forbes reported that we could be YC's fastest unicorn, reportedly raising at a $3.2 billion valuation. We're based in San Francisco and backed by leading investors including Altos Ventures, BoxGroup, and Y Combinator and angels from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Superintelligence Labs, and Microsoft AI.\nWhy Apply\nMassive Opportunity: Forbes reported that we could be YC's fastest unicorn, reportedly raising at a $3.2 billion valuation, and we're not slowing down.\nFounding Impact: You will own and architect core infrastructure systems that power our platform from the ground up.\nEquity & Growth: Competitive salary and meaningful equity. As we scale, you’ll have the opportunity to shape the engineering organization and lead major technical initiatives.\nStrong Team: Our founding team has experience from Citadel Securities, Meta, Google, Silver Lake, and Morgan Stanley - work alongside world-class engineers and researchers.\nThe AfterQuery Research Fellow program welcomes experienced researchers from AI and other disciplines who want to apply their expertise to frontier AI research and help push the boundaries of model capabilities. Fellows join us in our San Francisco office for 12-16 weeks of full-time, paid research.\nProjects are tailored to each fellow’s expertise and interests, with focus areas including:\nData quality and data composition\n\nPost-training, including supervised fine-tuning and reinforcement learning\n\nAgent and foundation-model evaluation\n\nPublic benchmarks in coding and specialized domains such as medicine, finance, law, and STEM\n\nThe goal is to develop the work into a joint publication or public benchmark. Fellows receive weekly mentorship and hands-on support with engineering, datasets, human annotation, and compute resources.\nResponsibilities\nDefine and execute a full-time project with an AfterQuery research mentor, aligned with your interests and at least one core research area.\n\nFormulate research questions, design rigorous experiments, and analyze the results.\n\nDevelop the datasets, methods, evaluations, or benchmark assets the project needs.\n\nDocument methods and results clearly and work with AfterQuery’s research and engineering teams to make the work reproducible.\n\nCo-author a paper and work toward publication.\n\nRequired Qualifications\nSignificant academic, clinical, legal, or industry research experience.\n\nClear technical communication and strong scientific writing skills.\n\nA strong record of research or publication and demonstrated ability to take a project from initial scoping to rigorous, reproducible results.\n\nA passion for advancing frontier AI and some understanding of model evaluation.\n\nAvailability to work full time in San Francisco for 12-16 weeks.\n\nPreferred Qualifications\nPublications at leading conferences or in peer-reviewed journals\n\nPhD, MD, JD, or equivalent advanced degree in a relevant field, or late-stage PhD candidate\n\nDeep domain expertise in medicine, finance, law, STEM, or another specialized field\n\nAvailability of 20+ hours per week; in-person preferred\n\nCompany Benefits (For Eligible Employees):\nHealth Insurance: Medical, Vision, Dental\n\n401(k) with Employer Match\n\nDaily Meals: Daily UberEats Stipend\n\nMonthly Wellness Stipend\n\nWe are an equal opportunity employer committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment. Employment decisions are made without regard to legally protected characteristics under applicable federal, state, or local law.\nWe comply with applicable pay transparency requirements and provide compensation ranges based on the position, qualifications, experience, and other relevant factors. Reasonable accommodations are available to qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs, as required by law. This job description is intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed and is not an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, qualifications, or working conditions associated with the position. 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