Job Details

Title of Role: ML Research-Focused Software Engineer

Location: Mountain View, CA (In-Office)

Company Stage of Funding: Series A

Office Type: Onsite 5 Days a Week

Salary: $170K–$315K base + Equity (Exact equity based on level)

Company Description

Our client is a fast-growing venture-backed AI startup featured on the Forbes AI 50 list. In just over a year, they've established themselves as a leader in the AI developer tools space, powering intelligent code assistance across 70+ programming languages and 40+ editors. The company is built around a proprietary stack of state-of-the-art language models and high-performance inference infrastructure, delivering industry-best developer experiences.

This team is laser-focused on building impactful, revenue-generating AI products. They combine research excellence with software engineering rigor, valuing high agency, deep curiosity, and a relentless drive to ship high-quality tools that are used by hundreds of thousands of developers worldwide.

What You Will Do

• Train and fine-tune cutting-edge large language models (LLMs) to support novel developer tools.
• Own experimental ML research workflows from ideation through implementation, including data curation, ablation studies, and evaluation pipelines.
• Prioritize experiments with high product impact and adapt quickly to emerging findings and technologies.
• Collaborate with engineering and product teams to productionize research results into robust and scalable features.
• Contribute to team knowledge via ML reading groups and discussions on state-of-the-art techniques and systems.

Ideal Candidate Background

• 2+ years of experience in software engineering, ideally at a company known for a high engineering bar.
• Rapid career progression and a track record of outperforming peers.
• Strong undergraduate academic performance (high GPA) from a top-tier CS program
• Multiple impactful internships or research projects during undergrad.
• Experience applying machine learning in production environments — especially training large-scale neural networks.
• Passion for code generation, AI tooling, and the developer experience.

Preferred

• Experience with large-scale training infrastructure and performance tradeoffs (e.g., H100s, TPUs, bandwidth-aware design).
• Familiarity with the landscape of AI-powered developer tools like GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and others.
• Past work in LLMs, code models, or other ML systems that directly support software engineering workflows.

Must Haves

• Strong software engineering skills — research must translate into real product value.
• Deep understanding of CS and ML fundamentals, from model training to systems-level performance.
• Proven ability to independently design and execute high-value ML experiments.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for collaborative research and engineering work.

Compensation and Benefits

• Competitive salary: $170,000 to $315,000 base, based on experience and seniority
• Equity: Up to 0.15% ownership depending on level
• Full health, dental, and vision insurance
• Daily in-office collaboration in a vibrant Mountain View location (near Caltrain)
• Mission-driven, high-ownership environment with opportunities to make outsized impact

If you're passionate about building intelligent systems, enjoy solving open-ended challenges, and want to work at the frontier of applied AI in a high-trust environment, this is the opportunity to consider.