AI Research Scientist/Engineer

Phizenix; Menlo Park (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading AI startup in Menlo Park is hiring a Research Scientist / Engineer capable of advancing LLMs through innovative architectures and training strategies. This opportunity offers the chance to work alongside top-tier AI professionals in a dynamic and inclusive environment. Competitive salary and work with cutting-edge technology await those ready to impact the future of AI.

Qualifications

• PhD required; strong background in ML/AI is essential.
• Hands-on experience with PyTorch and LLMs necessary.
• Experience in optimizing large-scale models would be ideal.

Responsibilities

• Design and refine LLM architectures based on diffusion principles.
• Develop advanced training strategies and custom loss functions.
• Translate research findings into production-level systems.

Skills

LLM training and inference optimization

PyTorch

Research-to-production mindset

Education

PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field

Tools

diffusion models

distributed model training

Job description

1 week ago Be among the first 25 applicants

Menlo Park, CA | On-Site | Full-Time/Direct Hire

Seeking top-tier PhDs (Bay Area preferred) with ICML/ICLR publications in LLM training and inference optimization—no vision/audio, just pure language; diffusion model experience a plus.

Client Opportunity | Through Phizenix (WBENC & Minority-Certified Recruiting Partner)

Join a trailblazing AI startup that's reinventing how large language models are built—with

Menlo Park, CA | On-Site | Full-Time/Direct Hire

Seeking top-tier PhDs (Bay Area preferred) with ICML/ICLR publications in LLM training and inference optimization—no vision/audio, just pure language; diffusion model experience a plus.

Client Opportunity | Through Phizenix (WBENC & Minority-Certified Recruiting Partner)

Join a trailblazing AI startup that's reinventing how large language models are built—with diffusion-powered LLMs that generate faster, adapt smarter, and handle multimodal data like no other.

We’re looking for a Research Scientist / Engineer who’s ready to move beyond traditional autoregressive methods and help shape the next wave of generative AI. You'll collaborate with pioneers in AI research, design novel model architectures, and scale your ideas from paper to production.

What You'll Be Doing

• Design and refine LLM architectures built on a diffusion-first paradigm
• Develop cutting-edge training strategies and custom loss functions
• Translate research into real-world systems for enterprise-scale deployments
• Explore constraint-aware generation and controlled outputs
• Push the limits of model efficiency, scalability, and multi-modal capabilities
  
  

Must-Haves

• Must have a PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field
• Hands-on experience with PyTorch and LLM fundamentals (transformers, KV caching, etc.)
• Should have recent/or any ICLR/ICML publications in LLM inference optimization would be ideal.
• Familiarity with diffusion models and distributed model training
• Solid research-to-production mindset with 2+ years in an ML/AI role
  
  

Bonus Points For

• Training LLMs from scratch and optimizing large-scale runs
• Advanced training tactics (e.g., mixed precision, gradient accumulation)
• Experience with cross-modal modeling and inference frameworks like vLLM, TensorRT
• A background in model efficiency, optimization theory, or infrastructure-aware research
  
  

At Phizenix, we’re proud to partner with diverse and inclusive teams building AI that matters. If you're ready to build, innovate, and publish with one of the boldest teams in AI—this is your moment.

California Pay Range: $180,000 USD - $200,000 USD

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Not Applicable

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Research and Engineering

• Industries

  Real Estate, Financial Services, and Capital Markets

Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at Phizenix by 2x

Sign in to set job alerts for “Artificial Intelligence Researcher” roles.

Head of Computer Vision and Machine Learning

Redwood City, CA $160,000.00-$220,000.00 1 year ago

Menlo Park, CA $177,000.00-$251,000.00 2 weeks ago

Sunnyvale, CA $177,000.00-$251,000.00 2 weeks ago

Senior Machine Learning Engineering Manager

Machine Learning Engineering Manager – Marketplace

San Mateo, CA $289,460.00-$338,270.00 5 days ago

Senior Machine Learning Engineering Manager

Research Scientist Manager, Generative AI - Llama Pre-training

Menlo Park, CA $177,000.00-$251,000.00 2 weeks ago

San Jose, CA $232,000.00-$398,750.00 1 week ago

Research Scientist Manager - 3D Generative AI

Machine Learning Engineering Manager, Content Safety

San Mateo, CA $289,460.00-$338,270.00 1 week ago

Mountain View, CA $165,000.00-$298,800.00 2 weeks ago

Senior Machine Learning Engineering Manager

San Jose, CA $168,200.00-$340,100.00 1 week ago

Sr. Machine Learning Engineering Manager

San Jose, CA $168,200.00-$340,100.00 1 week ago

Student Researcher (Doubao (Seed) - Machine Learning System) - 2025 Start (PhD)

Senior Machine Learning Engineering Manager -- Teamwork Graph

Student Researcher (Doubao (Seed) - Machine Learning System) - 2025 Start (PhD)

Student Researcher (Doubao (Seed) - Machine Learning System) - 2025 Start (PhD)

Staff/Tech Lead- ML Infrastructure Engineer

Postdoctoral Researcher, Fundamental AI Research (PhD)

Menlo Park, CA $117,000.00-$173,000.00 2 weeks ago

Sr. ASIC Design Engineer, Cloud-Scale Machine Learning Acceleration team

Sr. ASIC Design Engineer, Cloud-Scale Machine Learning Acceleration team

Palo Alto, CA $200,000.00-$300,000.00 4 weeks ago

AI Research Scientist II (Intern) United States

San Jose, CA $44,000.00-$130,000.00 1 week ago

San Jose, CA $125,000.00-$168,000.00 9 hours ago

Machine Learning Researcher (Relocation to London)

Mountain View, CA $141,000.00-$202,000.00 2 days ago

We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.