Research Engineer, Agentic Systems

Mirage; New York (NY); On-site; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental/vision

401K match

Commuter benefits

Catered lunch

Dinner stipend

Grubhub

Wellness perks

Team offsites

Generous PTO

Job summary

Mirage is seeking an ML Engineer to push the boundaries of large language models for multimodal creative tasks. You'll develop new approaches for building and extending agentic systems that understand and operate over complex, real-world data, particularly video.

This role focuses on advancing agent capabilities, improving reasoning and control, and enabling new forms of interaction between language models and time-based media. In-person at our NYC HQ.

Qualifications

• BS/MS/PhD in CS, ML, or related field.
• Strong track record building production ML systems or agentic pipelines.
• Deep understanding of transformers and modern LLM techniques.
• Experience with fine-tuning, alignment, or post-training methods, especially for adapting models to generate structured outputs or drive tool use.
• Comfort owning the full stack, from model-level experiments to deployed agent systems.
• Strong experimental rigor and good taste for what makes agents actually work in practice.

Responsibilities

• Design and build end-to-end agentic systems for creative tasks
• Develop novel approaches for training and adapting the large language models that power these agents
• Design new objectives, datasets, and fine-tuning strategies to improve agent behavior and reliability
• Explore multimodal reasoning and structured generation for creative control
• Run systematic experiments to evaluate and improve agent performance in real-world tasks
• Design evaluation frameworks for agentic workflows in video analysis and editing
• Analyze failure modes across the full agent loop (planning, tool use, execution) and iterate on improvements

Skills

Production ML systems

Agentic pipelines

Transformers/LLMs

Fine-tuning/Alignment

End-to-end ownership

Experimental rigor

Education

BS/MS/PhD in CS/ML or related field

Job description

Mirage is an AI-native video platform that intelligently orchestrates production and editing through natural language. Our models leverage contextual awareness to execute the same creative decisions a professional editor would — dramatically improving productivity for experienced teams, while making video creation accessible to anyone.
We’re an interdisciplinary team addressing some of the most difficult technical and creative challenges in generative media. As an early member of our team, you’ll tackle foundational problems that remain largely unsolved across the industry, driving an outsized impact on the future of creative expression.

More about us

Product (Captions by Mirage)

Research (Our Models and Agents)

Updates (Mirage on X / twitter)

TechCrunch, Forbes AI 50, Fast Company (press)

Our Investors

We’re very fortunate to have some the best investors and entrepreneurs backing us, including Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Uncommon Projects, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, Lenny Rachitsky, Antoine Martin, Julie Zhuo, Ben Rubin, Jaren Glover, SVAngel, 20VC, Ludlow Ventures, Chapter One, and more.

Please note that all of our roles will require you to be in-person at our NYC HQ (located in Union Square)

About the Role
Mirage is seeking an ML Engineer to push the boundaries of large language models for multimodal creative tasks. You'll develop new approaches for building and extending agentic systems that understand and operate over complex, real-world data, particularly video.

This role focuses on advancing agent capabilities, improving reasoning and control, and enabling new forms of interaction between language models and time-based media.

Responsibilities

• Design and build end-to-end agentic systems for creative tasks

• Develop novel approaches for training and adapting the large language models that power these agents

• Design new objectives, datasets, and fine-tuning strategies to improve agent behavior and reliability

• Explore multimodal reasoning and structured generation for creative control

• Run systematic experiments to evaluate and improve agent performance in real-world tasks

• Design evaluation frameworks for agentic workflows in video analysis and editing

• Analyze failure modes across the full agent loop (planning, tool use, execution) and iterate on improvements

What makes you a great fit

• BS/MS/PhD in CS, ML, or related field

• Strong track record building production ML systems or agentic pipelines

• Deep understanding of transformers and modern LLM techniques

• Experience with fine-tuning, alignment, or post-training methods, especially for adapting models to generate structured outputs or drive tool use

• Comfort owning the full stack, from model-level experiments to deployed agent systems

• Strong experimental rigor and good taste for what makes agents actually work in practice

Benefits:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans

• 401K with employer match

• Commuter Benefits

• Catered lunch multiple days per week

• Dinner stipend every night if you're working late and want a bite!

• Grubhub subscription

• Health & Wellness Perks

• Multiple team offsites per year with team events every month

• Generous PTO policy

Captions provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Please note benefits apply to full time employees only.