AI Research Engineer

RELAI; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity

Job summary

RELAI is seeking a senior or staff-level AI Research Engineer to advance techniques for creating, simulating, evaluating, and optimizing AI agents. The role bridges frontier research and production deployment in the DMV region or fully remote.

You will move ideas to prototypes, collaborate with product and engineering, and shape the technical direction of agent reliability, evaluation, and optimization across the full lifecycle. Competitive salary with meaningful equity is offered.

Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science or closely related field.
• Direct experience with AI agents or agency frameworks.
• Strong programming ability in Python.
• Demonstrated ability to convert ideas into experiments and shipped systems.
• Track record of collaborating across research, engineering, and product teams.
• Strong sense of ownership and drive to influence foundational capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Develop and refine core AI methods, algorithms, and systems across the full lifecycle of reliable agents.
• Invent new techniques to simulate, evaluate, and optimize agent behavior in realistic settings.
• Move rapidly from idea to working prototype and onward to production-facing features.
• Partner with product and engineering to translate frontier research into customer-visible value.
• Shape technical direction across agent reliability, evaluation, and optimization.

Skills

Python

AI/ML research

Experimentation

Cross-team collaboration

Education

PhD in Computer Science or closely related field

Job description

Role overview

A senior or staff-level AI Research Engineer role advancing techniques for the creation, simulation, evaluation, and optimization of AI agents. The position bridges frontier research and production deployment, helping transform fragile prototypes into dependable enterprise workflows. It is full-time and based in the DMV region or fully remote.

Responsibilities

• Develop and refine core AI methods, algorithms, and systems across the full lifecycle of reliable agents.
• Invent new techniques to simulate, evaluate, and optimize agent behavior in realistic settings.
• Move rapidly from idea to working prototype and onward to production-facing features.
• Partner with product and engineering to translate frontier research into customer-visible value.
• Shape technical direction across agent reliability, evaluation, and optimization.

Requirements

• Strong AI or ML research background with a PhD in computer science or a closely related field.
• Direct experience with AI agents or agency frameworks.
• Strong programming ability, particularly in Python.
• Demonstrated ability to convert ideas into experiments and shipped systems.
• Track record of collaborating across research, engineering, and product teams.
• Strong sense of ownership and drive to influence foundational capabilities.

Nice to have

• Background in evaluation, simulation, planning, reasoning, or optimization systems.
• Publications at top-tier venues or meaningful contributions to widely used open-source projects.
• Experience moving research ideas into production systems.

Benefits and work setup

• Competitive salary paired with meaningful equity.