Research Engineer

Sesame; Bellevue (WA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) max match

Health, vision & dental benefits

Unlimited PTO"

Flexible spending account (FSA)

Stock options

EAP

Job summary

Sesame is building a future where computers are lifelike, with voice agents that feel natural. We’re seeking an ML engineer to own evaluation pipelines, data tooling, and deployment of real-time voice models powering Sesame’s companion experience.

You will scale training/inference for large models, design robust metrics, and ship end-to-end solutions in a fast-paced startup environment. Collaboration with research, infra, and product is essential; strong autonomy is valued.

Qualifications

• Expert-level PyTorch experience.
• Proven software engineer capable of writing production code.
• Hands-on experience training or fine-tuning large language or other large-scale models.
• Experience designing metrics and harnesses that predict user happiness.
• Deep knowledge of the ML lifecycle: dataset ops, training pipelines, eval frameworks, deployment, and monitoring.
• History shipping complex projects to production—especially user-facing ML systems.
• High agency and the judgment to sprint solo or with a squad.
• Track record of setting technical direction and partnering with product, infra, and research.

Responsibilities

• Own evaluation pipelines and automate offline and live evals for production accuracy.
• Harness data to build safe, versioned, privacy‑aware dataset curation tooling.
• Ship models by prototyping, training, and deploying state‑of‑the‑art voice models.
• Scale training and inference for large workloads with latency, throughput, and cost optimization.
• Wire up monitoring and live evals to surface quality regressions.
• Move ideas from whiteboard to production in days with test dashboards.

Skills

PyTorch

ML engineering

Production code

LLM training

Evaluation metrics

ML lifecycle

Production deployment

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

About Sesame

Sesame believes in a future where computers are lifelike - with the ability to see, hear, and collaborate with us in ways that feel natural and human. With this vision, we're designing a new kind of computer, focused on making voice agents part of our daily lives. Our team brings together founders from Oculus and Ubiquity6, alongside proven leaders from Meta, Google, and Apple, with deep expertise spanning hardware and software. Join us in shaping a future where computers truly come alive.

Responsibilities

• Own evaluation pipelines — design, build, and automate offline and live evals that keep our speech and multimodal models honest in production.
• Harness the data — create tooling for safe, versioned, privacy‑aware dataset curation and discovery.
• Ship models, not slide decks — partner with research and infra to prototype, train, and deploy state‑of‑the‑art voice models that power Sesame’s real‑time companion experience.
• Squeeze silicon — scale training and inference for LLM‑class workloads; chase latency, throughput, and cost until the graphs flatten.
• Wire up monitoring and live evals — surface quality regressions before users or PMs notice.
• Move at startup speed — take ideas from whiteboard to production in days, not quarters; leave a clean trail of tests and dashboards behind.

Required Qualifications

• Expert‑level PyTorch.
• Proven software engineer who loves ML; comfortable writing production code across the stack.
• Hands‑on experience training or fine‑tuning large language or other large‑scale models with a variety of techniques.
• Evaluation expert — you’ve designed metrics and harnesses that actually predict user happiness.
• Deep knowledge of the ML lifecycle: dataset ops, training pipelines, eval frameworks, deployment, and monitoring.
• History of shipping complex projects to production—especially user‑facing, online ML systems—despite shifting requirements and surprise roadblocks.
• High agency and the judgment to know when to sprint solo vs. pull in the squad.
• Track record of setting technical direction, driving consensus, and partnering smoothly with product, infra, and research.

Sesame is committed to a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered. We welcome all qualified applicants, embracing diversity in race, gender, identity, orientation, ability, and more. We provide reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. Contact [e-mail] for assistance.

Full‑time Employee Benefits

• 401 (k) max employer match: 3.5% of compensation
• 100% employer-paid health, vision, and dental benefits for you and your dependents
• Unlimited PTO and sick time
• Flexible spending account with employer matching up to $1,650/year (medical FSA)
• Guardian Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Opportunity to share in the company's success with competitive stock options

Benefits do not apply to contingent/contract workers.

Compensation Range: $190K - $320K