Research Manager

Harnham; California; Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Harnham is seeking an Applied ML Research leader to manage and grow a high-impact team focused on multimodal AI models and world models. You will bridge research and production, mentoring senior researchers while collaborating with engineering and product to deliver real-time AI capabilities.

The role emphasizes transitioning research into scalable systems, with a strong background in computer vision and multimodal work, and a passion for producing practical, user-facing AI tools.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of industry experience as a research scientist in computer vision.
• Experience mentoring and managing research teams.

Responsibilities

• Manage and grow a team of senior researchers (likely 5-10), mentoring them and supporting their career growth while staying hands-on with research
• Oversee the transition from research into production, working closely with engineering to ship state-of-the-art ML work
• Partner with Product to initiate and develop research projects that translate into clear user value
• Communicate goals, drive execution, and inspire through others across a cross-functional org
• Translate product and business objectives into technical research strategies

Skills

Team leadership

Research mentorship

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication

Hands-on research

Python

PyTorch

Tools

Python

PyTorch

Job description

Essential: A demonstrated research track record with an h-index of 20+

We’re partnered with a well-funded AI research company focused on building next-generation multimodal models for media, interactive experiences, and world models. Their work spans cutting-edge generative systems and is increasingly moving toward real-time, interactive environments, pushing beyond static outputs into dynamic, AI-driven applications.

This is a high-impact, cross-functional role focused on managing and growing an Applied ML Research team building cutting-edge tools for AI-based media and world models, with a strong research foundation in computer vision and direct exposure to multimodal work, VLMs/MLLMs, and Physical AI as part of their core research team.

What You'll Do

• Manage and grow a team of senior researchers (likely 5-10), mentoring them and supporting their career growth while staying hands-on with research
• Oversee the transition from research into production, working closely with engineering to ship state-of-the-art ML work
• Partner with Product to initiate and develop research projects that translate into clear user value
• Communicate goals, drive execution, and inspire through others across a cross-functional org
• Translate product and business objectives into technical research strategies

Requirements

• 5+ years of industry experience as a research scientist in computer vision, with 1+ years managing teams
• Comfortable managing senior researchers while remaining hands-on in a hybrid research engineering capacity
• High emotional intelligence, with a track record of mentoring and developing other researchers
• Deep interest in productionizing state-of-the-art ML research, having shipped research into product previously
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across research, engineering, and product

If you're interested in working on the systems that enable next-generation AI models to train faster and run in real time, this is a rare opportunity to operate at the cutting edge of research and infrastructure.