Research Engineer, Content Understanding

present of AI; Zürich; Hybrid; CHF 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Exa is an applied AI lab that builds a search engine and API for AI models and agents. We are seeking a research engineer in content understanding who can turn messy text and documents into clean signals, build and evaluate models, and contribute to retrieval and embedding systems.

The role involves working with large datasets and ensuring quality signals drive search outcomes. You will collaborate on designing experiments, evaluating results, and shaping how content is found and understood,

Qualifications

• Strong ML and data skills with hands-on model building and evaluation.
• Experience with large datasets and rigorous model evaluation.
• Familiarity with retrieval, embeddings, and document pipelines.
• Proficiency in Python and ML tooling.

Skills

Machine learning

Data skills

Python

ML tooling

Retrieval

Embeddings

Text pipelines

Document pipelines

Tools

Python

ML tooling

Job description

A research engineer in content understanding typically needs strong machine learning and data skills, plus the ability to turn messy text and documents into clean, usable signals. A strong candidate brings hands on experience building and evaluating models, comfort with large datasets, and care about measuring quality. At an applied AI lab building search for models and agents, that work likely feeds directly into how well content is found and understood.

How it fits the AI era

This kind of role sits close to where AI is changing fastest, since models now read and summarize content at scale. The human part stays in framing the problem, judging what good understanding looks like, and checking results that look right but are not. Careful evaluation and judgment matter more as generation gets cheaper.

How it builds AI experience

The work offers hands on practice with retrieval, embeddings, and evaluation of model output on real content. Building small experiments that compare approaches on a clear task is a practical way to prepare. Experience with search or document pipelines is a useful starting point.

Worth showing

• Text and document pipelines
• Retrieval and embeddings
• Python and ML tooling

This is our own read, written from the employer's posting and the company's Spotlight. The employer's posting is the source of truth for the role.

About Exa

Exa is an applied AI lab that builds a search engine and API for AI models and agents, per the company.