Frontier ML Research Program Manager

Reflection; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Top-tier compensation

Stock options

Health & wellness

Meals provided

Parental leave 22 weeks

Unlimited PTO

Visa sponsorship

Team off-sites

Job summary

Reflection is a research lab focused on making intelligence open and accessible for all. The Research Program Manager role embeds with the Pre-training ML and Data teams to accelerate frontier model development, coordinating data pipelines, experiment planning, and architecture decisions.

You will cut through ambiguity, align stakeholders, and drive cross-team progress. You will be a first-responder, digging into technical tradeoffs, enabling researchers to move faster, and building durable

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in technical program management, research operations, or ML engineering.
• Deep enough technically to engage with researchers on topics like model architecture, scaling laws, data processing pipelines, training dynamics, and optimizer behavior.
• Proven ability to embed within technical teams and earn trust through competence, reliability, and genuine curiosity about the work.

Responsibilities

• Embed with the pre-training ML and Data teams to understand the technical landscape and build trust with researchers.
• Drive end-to-end execution of cross-team research initiatives spanning data, model architecture, training runs, and evaluation.
• Coordinate the operational rhythm of pre-training research, including experiment prioritization, run scheduling, data readiness, and checkpoint handoffs to downstream teams.
• Equip research leadership to make quick decisions by presenting clear, actionable recommendations.
• Build lightweight processes that bring structure to unstructured research environments with durable coordination systems.
• Act as the connective tissue between pre-training, mid-training, post-training, and infrastructure teams to align decisions.

Skills

Program management

Research operations

ML engineering

Stakeholder management

Job description

Reflection is a research lab focused on making intelligence open and accessible for all. The Research Program Manager role embeds with the Pre-training ML and Data teams to accelerate frontier model development, coordinating data pipelines, experiment planning, and architecture decisions.

You will cut through ambiguity, align stakeholders, and drive cross-team progress. You will be a first-responder, digging into technical tradeoffs, enabling researchers to move faster, and building durable