{"id":1202096,"url":"https://alion.io/job/maker-maker-ai-researcher-general","title":"RESEARCHER (GENERAL)","company":{"id":2683108,"name":"MakerMaker","domain":"makermaker.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/maker-maker-ai","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":5,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-12T06:55:09Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"senior","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":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":171000,"max_usd":326000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":1124},"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Multi-Agent Systems","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Function Calling","optional":true},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":true},{"name":"Tool Use","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-05-18T20:38:11Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-05-18","last_verified_at":"2026-10-12T21:06:07Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":147,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":146},"description":"ABOUT THE COMPANY\nWe're building autonomous research agents for recursive self-improvement (multi-agent systems that propose, run, and analyze machine learning experiments). We're a small team based in San Francisco, on-site\nABOUT THE ROLE\nAs a Researcher on our team, you'll design experiments and develop methods that drive how our autonomous research agents make decisions. You'll work across the full ML research stack (problem formulation, method design, experimentation, analysis, write-up) and you'll do it on problems that don't always have established benchmarks because we're inventing the workloads.\nThe work is open-ended and concrete at the same time. Open-ended because the research problems are constantly evolving and we don’t prescribe approaches. Concrete because the research questions are motivated by real-world applications. Open-ended because we don't have prescribed research directions; concrete because every experiment ties to something the agents will actually do. You'll have real autonomy (and the corresponding responsibility for choosing well).\nWHAT YOU'LL DO\nIdentify research questions that, when answered, would meaningfully change what our agents are capable of\n\naDesign and run experiments end-to-end (from problem framing through method design, infrastructure, evaluation, and write-up)\n\nDevelop new methods spanning RL, LLMs, agentic systems, multi-agent coordination, search, evaluation, or wherever the problem leads\n\nWork closely with engineers to take the most promising methods from research code into production\n\nRead deeply across the literature; bring useful work from outside in\n\nHelp shape how the team picks problems\n\nWHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR\nStrong track record of ML research at the frontier: RL, LLMs, agentic ML, multi-agent systems, evaluation, or adjacent\n\n5+ years of hands-on research experience in industry or academia\n\nComfortable designing experiments and running them at scale, not just proposing them\n\nStrong written communication: you can summarize your research findings into actionable insights for next steps\n\nFluent in PyTorch, Jax or equivalent; comfortable working with large-scale training infrastructure\n\nBias toward shipping research rather than handing it off\n\nComfortable with ambiguity: many of our problems don't have a known right answer, and navigating that uncertainty is core to the role.\n\nPublished research at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, COLM, RLC, or comparable venues\n\nNICE TO HAVE\nPhD in ML, statistics, computer science, or adjacent\n\nOpen-source contributions to ML research infrastructure\n\nExperience with agentic systems, tool use, long-horizon planning, or multi-agent coordination\n\nTHIS ROLE IS PROBABLY NOT FOR YOU IF\nYou want to focus on one specific benchmark and watch the metric tick up (our problems are broader and shift)\n\nYou prefer more pure research that never touches a production system\n\nYou'd rather work alone than share research taste openly with a small team","description_format":"text","description_chars":2956,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["AI Agents","AI Research Labs"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-24T21:28:19Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":7,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.263,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":146,"expected_fill_days":22,"reasons":["conf:2","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-12T06:55:09Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/maker-maker-ai-researcher-general","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/maker-maker-ai-researcher-general.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-13T00:34:27Z","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":934,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-14T00:00:00Z"}},"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":2683108},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=2683108"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fmaker-maker-ai-researcher-general"},{"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%2Fmaker-maker-ai-researcher-general"},{"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%2Fmaker-maker-ai-researcher-general"},{"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/maker-maker-ai-researcher-general\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fmaker-maker-ai-researcher-general"}]}