{"id":3044537,"url":"https://alion.io/job/lightfield-staff-research-scientist","title":"Research Scientist (Staff+)","company":{"id":8339,"name":"Lightfield","domain":"lightfield.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/lightfield","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":6,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":28,"computed_at":"2026-10-24T06:02:35Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"staff","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":220000,"max":300000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":300000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"A/B Testing","optional":false},{"name":"arXiv","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"Llama","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"NLP","optional":false},{"name":"Post-training","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"SFT","optional":false},{"name":"World Models","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"Node JS","optional":true},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true},{"name":"Synthetic Data","optional":true},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-21T22:02:19Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-24T13:00:12Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":2,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":2},"description":"About Lightfield\nLightfield is reimagining CRM as a world model of a business. By learning from emails, meetings, and customer conversations, we’re building a living understanding of how a company works-so AI can help teams anticipate what comes next, make better decisions, and take action.\nMore than 5,000 companies have used the product since its November launch. We’ve raised more than $70M from Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Maverick Ventures, and Greylock to attack the biggest software category in the world. We previously built Tome, which reached more than 25 million users, and our team brings experience from Llama, Instagram, Google, and Salesforce.\nAbout the role\nWe’re starting Lightfield Research to build a Business World Model through frontier research in simulation, world modeling and self-improvement. We’re hiring applied researchers and research scientists to lead its first projects.\nYou’ll report directly to Ves Stoyanov, co-founder and Chief AI Officer, previously at Facebook AI, where he co-authored RoBERTa and XLM-R. You’ll work alongside AI engineers who take research into production and GTM experts who help define tasks and quality.\nResearchers at Lightfield own projects from the first question through measurable product impact and publication. You’ll help shape the lab’s research agenda, culture and reputation as it grows.\nWhat you’ll do\nLead research projects in evaluation, benchmarks, deal prediction, simulation and self-improvement.\n\nDesign empirical evaluations of Lightfield’s AI system using LLM-as-judge, rubric-based grading, offline replay and A/B tests, on both production and offline data.\n\nBuild benchmarks for core GTM tasks such as list building, CSV imports, mail intelligence, record updates and outbound. Measure Lightfield against frontier models and competitors.\n\nBuild simulated companies with users and streams of email, meetings and knowledge, where the right answers are known. Use them to evaluate the full system end to end.\n\nDevelop techniques that let Lightfield improve as it operates, at the world, company and user levels. These include reinforcement learning and, where it pays off, fine-tuning.\n\nModel deal probability and the factors behind it, and ship them as product features.\n\nImprove cost and quality trade-offs across the AI system, including inference cost.\n\nPublish research blog posts, open benchmarks, arXiv reports and papers, and present at conferences and meetups.\n\nHelp build a world-class research team by recruiting and mentoring teammates.\n\nWho you are\nYou have 7+ years of applied research experience in ML or NLP, in industry or academia.\n\nYou have a PhD or MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning or a related field, or equivalent research experience.\n\nYou have a track record of research that shipped or was published: papers, open-source models, datasets or benchmarks.\n\nYou have deep hands-on experience with LLMs, including evaluation, agent design and retrieval. Post-training experience (SFT, RL, preference optimization) is a plus.\n\nYou are rigorous about experimental design and can tell a real improvement from noise.\n\nYou write strong Python and are comfortable working in a production codebase (TypeScript, Node.js, PostgreSQL) alongside engineers.\n\nYou can drive an ambiguous problem independently and balance ambitious goals with frequent, visible results.\n\nYou communicate clearly to technical and non-technical audiences, in writing and in talks.\n\nYou are energized by building AI that businesses depend on to do their jobs.\n\nNice to have\nExperience building simulations, synthetic data or RL environments.\n\nExperience with forecasting or predictive modeling on business data.\n\nExperience creating benchmarks adopted by others.\n\nBenefits & Perks\nCompetitive salary\n\nMeaningful early equity\n\nHealth insurance (medical, dental, vision)\n\n3 weeks of PTO\n\n11 paid company holidays + we enjoy a winter holiday break\n\n3 months of paid family leave\n\nWednesdays work from home\n\nRegular team dinners, events, offsites, and retreats\n\n401k plan\n\nOther perks include: commuter and lunch stipend","description_format":"text","description_chars":4090,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["401k plan","Equity","Health insurance","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["CRM Software","Marketing & Sales AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-21T23:56:09Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":28,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-24T06:02:35Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":300000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/lightfield-staff-research-scientist","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/lightfield-staff-research-scientist.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-24T14:48:44Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":20942,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-25T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":8339},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=8339"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Flightfield-staff-research-scientist"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Flightfield-staff-research-scientist"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Flightfield-staff-research-scientist"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/lightfield-staff-research-scientist\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Flightfield-staff-research-scientist"}]}