Machine Learning Researcher

Radley James; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Founding ownership

Direct influence

Job summary

Radley James is partnering with an early-stage AI startup to hire a Founding ML Researcher in San Francisco. You will shape the research roadmap and build production-grade models for enterprise document understanding and multimodal AI applications.

You'll own significant technical direction from day one, work directly with founders, and contribute to scalable data pipelines, experimentation frameworks, and deployment of cutting-edge ML research into real-world systems with equity and impact.

Qualifications

• Strong background in machine learning research with hands-on production experience.
• Experience training and deploying modern deep learning, vision-language or document understanding models.
• Strong Python and deep learning framework experience (PyTorch preferred).
• Track record of designing experiments, evaluating models and improving performance through iterative research.

Responsibilities

• Leading research into state-of-the-art document understanding and multimodal machine learning.
• Designing, training and evaluating new models for complex document parsing and information extraction.
• Building scalable data pipelines and experimentation frameworks.
• Working closely with engineering teams to deploy research into production.
• Helping define the long-term technical direction of the company\'s ML strategy.

Skills

Machine learning research

Production experience

Deep learning

Vision-language models

Document understanding

Python

PyTorch

Tools

PyTorch

Job description

Founding ML Researcher | San Francisco | $250,000–$500,000 + Equity

We're working with an exceptionally well-funded, early-stage AI startup that's redefining how enterprises prepare complex documents for AI applications. Their platform is already trusted by major organisations and processes millions of documents every week, enabling AI systems to understand structured and unstructured content with significantly greater accuracy.

They're looking for a Founding ML Researcher to help shape both the research roadmap and the core technology behind the platform. This is a rare opportunity to join at an early stage, work directly with the founders, and turn cutting-edge ML research into production systems used by enterprise customers.

What you\'ll be doing:

• Leading research into state-of-the-art document understanding and multimodal machine learning.
• Designing, training and evaluating new models for complex document parsing and information extraction.
• Building scalable data pipelines and experimentation frameworks.
• Working closely with engineering teams to deploy research into production.
• Helping define the long-term technical direction of the company\'s ML strategy.

What we\'re looking for:

• Strong background in machine learning research with hands-on production experience.
• Experience training and deploying modern deep learning, vision-language or document understanding models.
• Strong Python and deep learning framework experience (PyTorch preferred).
• Track record of designing experiments, evaluating models and improving performance through iterative research.
• Someone who enjoys solving challenging problems in a fast-paced startup environment and wants significant ownership from day one.

What\'s on offer:

• Highly competitive equity package.
• Founding-level ownership and direct influence over the company\'s technical direction.
• Opportunity to work on challenging ML problems with immediate real-world impact.
• Small, high-calibre team building AI infrastructure for enterprise-scale applications.

If you\'re excited by taking research from idea to production and want to help build foundational AI technology at an early-stage company, I\'d love to tell you more.