Founding Engineer - ML Research

About the Role

A well-funded, Series A AI/ML startup in the Bay Area is looking for a Founding ML Research Engineer to help build and scale its AI research backbone from the ground up. This role sits at the intersection of applied machine learning and systems engineering - ideal for someone who thrives in unstructured environments, loves building fast, and obsesses over model performance and data quality.

You'll work directly with the founding team to prototype, experiment, and ship research-driven features that push the boundaries of what cutting-edge AI systems can do. This is a rare opportunity to shape foundational technical culture at an early-stage company serving top-tier frontier AI labs and enterprises.

What You'll Do

• Design, train, and evaluate ML models (LLMs, diffusion models, or domain-specific architectures).

• Develop scalable experimentation pipelines for data, model, and evaluation workflows.

• Collaborate closely with data and infrastructure teams to optimize training throughput and quality.

• Contribute to open research, internal benchmarks, and emerging techniques in multimodal or generative AI.

• Rapidly prototype and productionize research insights into usable tools and models.

• Define foundational technical culture: set standards for research rigor, documentation, and reproducibility.

What We're Looking For

Required:

• 3-10 years of experience in ML research, applied ML, or ML systems engineering.

• Deep familiarity with PyTorch, JAX, and/or TensorFlow.

• Strong working knowledge of model architectures - Transformers, Diffusion models, and/or RLHF.

• Solid foundations in data processing, distributed training, and evaluation metrics.

• Ability to move fluidly from research papers → working prototypes → production-ready code.

Nice to Have:

• Curiosity for emerging ML paradigms: multimodality, self-learning, synthetic data, agentic systems, etc.

• Experience working in high-velocity, early-stage startup environments (zero-to-one mindset).

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: $220,000 - $300,000 USD annually, commensurate with experience.

• Equity participation as a founding team member.

Location

• On-site in Mountain View, California.

• This is not a remote role.

• Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.