Research Engineers, Post-Training

Distyl AI; United States; Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% covered medical, dental, and vision for employees and dependents

401(k) with additional perks

Access to state-of-the-art models

Ownership of high-impact projects

Generous usage of modern AI tools

Job summary

Distyl AI is seeking a Research Engineer in the United States to bridge AI research and production systems, enhancing AI system reliability and effectiveness. Candidates should possess robust programming and experimentation skills, emphasizing ownership mentality in improving system outcomes.

This hybrid role offers a salary range of $150K to $250K, alongside comprehensive benefits and opportunities to engage with cutting-edge AI technologies.

Responsibilities

• Design and run post-training workflows that improve reliability of AI systems.
• Develop datasets and feedback loops for applied AI use cases.
• Investigate the effects of post-training techniques across production constraints.
• Build infrastructure for experimentation and behavior analysis.
• Partner with AI Researchers to explore new methods.
• Analyze model outputs and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Create processes for adapting AI systems to customer domains.
• Communicate model behavior and evaluation results with stakeholders.

Skills

Experience Improving Model Behaviour

Strong Programming and Experimentation Skills

Research‑Oriented Builder

AI Systems Mindset

AI‑Native Working Style

Bias Towards Measurement

Comfort with Applied Constraints

Ownership Mentality

Job description

About Distyl AI

Distyl is an applied AI technology company partnering with the world’s most ambitious institutions to rearchitect critical operations for the frontier of AI. Our customers include the largest companies in telecom, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, consumer goods, and global social organizations.

We research and deploy technologies that power AI-native operations — both for our partners and for Distyl itself. Our work spans research into self-constructing systems, the development of the most reliable execution of AI systems, and products that transform mission-critical workflows. As a result, Distyl's technologies affect some of the world's largest operations — from hundreds of millions of consumer interactions to tens of millions of supply chain transactions and millions of patient journeys.

Distyl is backed by leading investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, DST Global, and the board-members of 20+ F500s. The results reflect this approach: a 100% production deployment success rate for our customers and one of the few enterprise AI companies to run a profitable business.

What We Are Looking For

At Distyl, Research Engineers build the bridge between frontier AI research and production systems that deliver real business value. This role is for engineers who are excited to investigate how AI systems should be designed, rapidly prototype new ideas, and turn promising concepts into reliable systems that work inside real customer environments.

Research Engineers operate at the intersection of applied research, systems engineering, and customer-facing deployment. They design and implement compound AI systems, run experiments to understand system behavior, build evaluation frameworks, and collaborate closely with AI Researchers, AI Engineers, and customer stakeholders. Their work is not limited to demos or isolated prototypes: they help turn new techniques into robust systems that can be measured, operated, and improved in production.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and run post‑training workflows that improve the behaviour, reliability, and usefulness of AI systems
• Develop datasets, preference signals, evaluation suites, reward models, fine‑tuning workflows, and feedback loops for applied AI use cases
• Investigate how different post‑training techniques affect system behaviour across enterprise workflows and production constraints
• Build infrastructure for experimentation, model comparison, regression testing, and behaviour analysis
• Partner with AI Researchers to explore new post‑training methods and with AI Engineers to apply successful techniques in deployed systems
• Analyse model outputs, failure modes, human feedback, and production traces to identify opportunities for behavioural improvement
• Create repeatable processes for adapting AI systems to customer domains while preserving robustness, transparency, and maintainability
• Communicate clearly with internal teams and customer stakeholders about model behaviour, evaluation results, limitations, and trade‑offs

Who You Are

• Experience Improving Model Behaviour: You have worked with fine‑tuning, preference optimisation, reinforcement learning, reward modelling, synthetic data, evals, or related post‑training techniques
• Strong Programming and Experimentation Skills: You can build training and evaluation pipelines, run controlled experiments, analyse results, and iterate quickly
• Research‑Oriented Builder: You care about understanding why behaviour changes, not just whether a benchmark improves
• AI Systems Mindset: You understand that model behaviour is shaped by data, prompts, tools, retrieval, evaluators, and deployment context—not model weights alone
• AI‑Native Working Style: You use AI tools daily to accelerate coding, analysis, debugging, experimentation, and research exploration
• Bias Towards Measurement: You make behavioural improvements concrete through evaluations, comparisons, regression tests, and production‑relevant metrics
• Comfort with Applied Constraints: You can balance research ambition with practical constraints around cost, latency, reliability, data availability, and customer requirements
• Ownership Mentality: You take responsibility for whether post‑training work improves real system outcomes, not just offline scores

What We Offer

• The base salary range for this role is $150K – $250K, depending on experience, location, and level. In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for meaningful equity, along with a comprehensive benefits package
• 100% covered medical, dental, and vision for employees and dependents
• 401(k) with additional perks (e.g., commuter benefits, in‑office lunch)
• Access to state‑of‑the‑art models, generous usage of modern AI tools, and real‑world business problems
• Ownership of high‑impact projects across top enterprises
• A mission‑driven, fast‑moving culture that prizes curiosity, pragmatism, and excellence

Distyl has offices in San Francisco and New York. This role follows a hybrid collaboration model with 3+ days per week (Tuesday–Thursday) in‑office.

#LI‑Hybrid

We believe diverse perspectives make our work stronger and more impactful. We are an equal opportunity employer and evaluate all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.