Machine Learning Applied Researcher

STRATOS Search; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

STRATOS Search in California is seeking an experienced ML researcher to help build multimodal foundation models that fuse time-series sensor data with language, vision, and audio. You will guide problem formulation, experimental design, model development, evaluation, and deployment, working end-to-end on real-world industrial systems.

You will own modeling across data, modeling, and evaluation; advance architectures and training strategies for physical-world understanding and long-context

Job description

We are building a new class of multimodal foundation models for the physical world. Our focus is on combining time series / sensor data, language, vision, audio, and other real-world signals into unified models that can understand complex systems, reason over long horizons, and support real-world tasks in industrial and physical environments. We are looking for an experienced, researcher-oriented ML candidate to help build these systems end to end: from problem formulation and experimental design, to model development, evaluation, and deployment. This role is intended for someone who is highly self-directed, can independently perform strong scientific work, and is excited to work on multimodal intelligence grounded in physical signals.

What you’ll work on

• Build and improve multimodal foundation models that incorporate time-series / sensor data alongside language, vision, audio, and related modalities
• Drive research and modeling efforts from problem definition through experimentation and evaluation
• Own modeling work across data, modeling, and evaluation
• Advance model architectures and training strategies for physical-world understanding and long-context reasoning
• Drive and scale research experiments and modeling advances to production models that power diverse use cases in complex industrial scenarios
• Contribute to research directions with potential for publication

What we’re looking for

• Self-directed and comfortable operating in ambiguous problem spaces
• Able to independently perform strong scientific work, including forming hypotheses, designing experiments, and drawing sound conclusions
• Experience with end-to-end modeling, including data, modeling, and evaluation
• Experience with productionization or deployment of ML models
• Multimodal experience preferred
• Strong technical judgment and experimental rigor

Why this role is interesting

Many important real-world systems cannot be understood from text or vision alone. Their behavior depends on signals that evolve over time: sensors, operating conditions, environment, and interactions across subsystems. We believe the next generation of useful foundation models will need to integrate these sources of information and reason over them in a unified way. You will have a unique opportunity to help shape a new generation of multimodal foundation models grounded in physical signals and real-world dynamics. The role offers a rare combination of deep research challenges, practical deployment impact, and the chance to contribute to a fast-emerging area of AI.