ML/Applied Research Scientist

CHAI AI; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 610,000 - 750,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Cash compensation

Health, 401k, unlimited PTO

Fast hiring process

Stock option trade

Job summary

CHAI AI in Palo Alto is seeking an engineer to own the research agenda for model training and evaluation, defining new training objectives and metrics, and tying them directly to revenue.

You should have 2+ years of software engineering experience, high motivation, and ownership, and be willing to work in person at our Palo Alto office.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of software engineering experience.
• High motivation and talented.
• High ownership: comfortable with ambiguity, able to define the problem and the plan rather than execute a predefined spec.

Responsibilities

• Own the research agenda for model training and evaluation.
• Develop new training objectives and eval metrics.
• Connect research to revenue outcomes.

Skills

Software engineering

Ambiguity tolerance

Ownership mindset

Job description

CHAI is a social AI platform where millions of people create, share, and talk to AI characters. As of Sep 2026, it has 10 million active users and $100 million ARR. After receiving over $55M in funding from investors such as AMD and CoreWeave, CHAI AI is actively hiring engineers to expand its team.

About the team

Engineering is 15–20 people with a flat structure. High impact on the product, fast iteration, and clear metrics to measure against.

What you will work on

Own the research agenda for model training and evaluation — new training objectives, new eval metrics — and connect them directly to revenue.

You might thrive in this role if you…

• 2+ years of software engineering experience
• High motivation and talented.
• High ownership: comfortable with ambiguity, able to define the problem and the plan rather than execute a predefined spec.
• Able to work in person at our Palo Alto Office.

Compensation and benefits

• Top pay AI startup in Bay Area. $610,000 – $750,000, paid 100% in cash.
• We benchmark against total comp at Meta, Google, and OpenAI — and pay that number in cash, not equity, with the option to trade a portion of cash for stock options.
• Health, 401k, unlimited PTO.
• We run a fast process - an offer can be given within 7 days of first contact.

• 20 minute phone screen with our founder or engineer
• 20 minute personality assessment
• Take home assessment. 60-90 minutes to complete.