Founding Member of Technical Staff — ML Engineering / Research

HRB; New York (NY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative firm is seeking a Founding Member of Technical Staff specializing in ML Engineering and Research. This role offers the chance to work on cutting-edge LLM applications, driving technical projects from inception to deployment while collaborating with a small, dedicated team. With a focus on open-source contributions, you will have the opportunity to expand your skill set, including learning Rust, and engage in a culture that values personal growth and technical excellence. Join a dynamic environment where your contributions will shape the future of machine learning technology and be part of a team that values hard work and a balanced lifestyle.

Benefits

Competitive compensation

Learning and growth opportunities

Open-source contributions

Work alongside a technical team

Supportive work culture

Qualifications

• Strong technical background with experience in ML or RL.
• Ability to drive large projects from inception to deployment.

Responsibilities

• Integrate model gateway and optimize LLMs for better performance.
• Contribute to open-source projects and build delightful interfaces.

Skills

Machine Learning Engineering

Reinforcement Learning

Open Source Development

Project Management

Education

PhD in Reinforcement Learning

Bachelor's in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Rust

API Development

Job description

GreenFoot Technologies is searching for a "Founding Member of Technical Staff — ML Engineering / Research" for our New York City-based Client. Our Client is an open-source platform that creates a feedback loop for optimizing LLM applications — turning production data into smarter, faster, and cheaper models.$200K – $250K

1. Integrate their model gateway
2. Send metrics or feedback
3. Optimize prompts, models, and inference strategies
4. Watch your LLMs improve over time

It enables adata & learning flywheel for LLMs by unifying:

1. Inference: one API for all LLMs, with <1ms P99 overhead
2. Observability: inference & feedback → your database
3. Optimization: from prompts to fine-tuning and RL
4. Experimentation: built-in A/B testing, routing, fallbacks

Role

Our client is looking for a Founding Member of Technical Staff with a background in ML engineering or research.

Why not “engineer” or "researcher"? They will not make a distinction between engineers and researchers to encourage people to have cross-functional scope and impact. Our CTO has a PhD in reinforcement learning and writes infrastructure code in Rust.

Today, they need help building delightful interfaces, but expect everyone to contribute to the entire project over time. The vast majority of your work will be open source. You’ll have an opportunity to continue to master your current skills with the flexibility to learn new ones from scratch.

They Are Looking For

• Strong technical background— You’ve tackled hard technical problems. You’re comfortable driving large projects from inception to deployment.

• Background in LLMs or RL— You’ll complement the team with a strong background and technical leadership. In particular, they are interested in people with experience at the frontier of either LLMs or reinforcement learning.

• Hungry for personal growth— There are no speed limits. You’re excited about learning and contributing across the stack.

• In-person in NYC— They work in-person five days a week in NYC. They work hard and obsess about the craft – but maintain and encourage a healthy lifestyle with a long-term mindset.

What They Offer

Competitive compensation— They believe great talent deserves excellent compensation (salary, equity, benefits), even at an early-stage startup.

• Open-source contributions— The vast majority of your work will be open source and public.

• Learning and growth opportunities— You’ll join with a background in ML but will have the opportunity (& be encouraged) to expand your skill set way beyond that (curious about Rust?).

• Small, technical, in-person team— You’ll work alongside a 100% technical team and help shape our vision, culture, and engineering practices.

• Best-in-class investors— We’re lucky to be backed by leading funds like FirstMark (backed ClickHouse), Bessemer (backed Anthropic), Bedrock (backed OpenAI), and many angels. We have years of runway and a long-term mindset.