Research Engineer - Agency and Reasoning

Bison; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

Vision benefits

FSA plans

Relocation support

401(k) plan

In-office meals

Unlimited PTO

Team events in SF

Job summary

Zyphra, a San Francisco-based AI company, seeks a Research Engineer - Agency and Reasoning to join its core team. You will conduct novel research in reinforcement learning, post-training, and human preference learning, applying your ideas to next-generation language models at scale.

This role requires rapid experimentation, strong prototyping, and excellent collaboration, with impact across research and production-scale implementations.

Qualifications

• Postgraduate degree in CS/EECS/Math/Physics or related field.
• Strong research taste with ability to take ideas from concept to execution.
• Excellent prototyping and implementation skills.
• Ability to move quickly from idea to experimentation.

Responsibilities

• Conduct novel reinforcement learning research and apply ideas at scale to language models.
• Contribute to Zyphra's Agency and Reasoning Team across research and engineering work.

Skills

Reinforcement learning

Python

PyTorch

Research experience

Experimentation & prototyping

Communication & collaboration

Language model reasoning

Data engineering & synthetic data

Education

Postgraduate degree in CS/EECS/Math/Physics

Tools

Python

PyTorch

Job description

Zyphra is an artificial intelligence company based in San Francisco, California.

The Role:

As a Research Engineer - Agency and Reasoning, you will be a core contributor to Zyphra’s Agency and Reasoning Team. You will be involved with performing novel research in reinforcement learning, post-training, and human preference learning, and applying your ideas at scale to our next generation of language models.

What We’re Looking For / Requirements:

• Strong research taste and intuition

• The ability to work through a research project from conception to execution to write-up

• Strong implementation and prototyping skillset

• A researcher who can take an idea from conception to experimentation extremely quickly

• The ability to work well and cooperate with others in a high-paced research setting

• Curiosity, interest, and joy in understanding intelligence.

Qualifications / Additional Skills:

• Experience and aptitude with reinforcement learning, either in the context of language model reasoning or more classical RL tasks

• Experience with language-model-supervised fine-tuning and preference-learning methods, such as DPO and simPO.

• Experience with context-length extension methods

• A good intuitive ability to understand model behaviors and correct them through iterative fine-tuning

• Interest in grappling in detail with data and spending significant time involved in data engineering and synthetic data generation

• Postgraduate degree in a scientific subject (Computer Science, EE/EECS, Mathematics, Physics)

• Previously published machine learning research in well-respected venues

• Highly proficient with PyTorch and Python

• We are excited and able to rapidly learn new fields and implement new ideas

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, and can work effectively on both research and engineering implementation at scale

Why Work at Zyphra:

• Our research methodology is to make grounded, methodical steps toward ambitious goals. Both deep research and engineering excellence are equally valued

• We strongly value new and crazy ideas and are very willing to bet big on new ideas

• We move as quickly as we can; we aim to minimize the bar to impact as low as possible

• We all enjoy what we do and love discussing AI

Benefits and Perks:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and FSA plans

• Competitive compensation and 401(k) plan

• Relocation and immigration support on a case-by-case basis

• In-office snacks and meals provided

• Unlimited PTO and company holidays

• In-person team in San Francisco with a collaborative, high-energy environment