Research Scientist, Multimodal Foundation Models

Kindredventures; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI, designing and operating global systems for data capture, labeling, and hardware-enabled workflows used by leading AI labs. We seek an experienced Research Scientist to advance large-scale vision-language and multimodal foundation models.

You will work across model development, from data and training strategies to evaluation, optimization, and deployment.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience researching, training, fine-tuning, or post-training large-scale foundation models, particularly vision-language or multimodal models.
• Strong understanding of deep learning architectures, optimization techniques, and modern model training methodologies.
• Practical experience with supervised fine-tuning (SFT), preference optimization, or reinforcement learning approaches such as DPO, GRPO, PPO, or RLHF.
• Strong proficiency in Python and PyTorch, JAX, or comparable deep learning frameworks.
• Experience designing, executing, and analyzing large-scale machine learning experiments.
• Familiarity with distributed training systems and GPU-based model development.
• Strong research instincts, analytical problem-solving skills, and the ability to independently drive complex technical projects.
• Experience working with open-weight multimodal foundation models.
• Research publications on top-tier journals/conferences, open-source contributions, or experience within leading AI research organizations.

Responsibilities

• Multimodal Model Research: Research, develop, and improve vision-language models and multimodal foundation-model architectures.
• Post-Training & Reinforcement Learning: Design and implement advanced training strategies, including supervised fine-tuning, preference optimization, and reinforcement learning, to improve model capabilities.
• Model Performance & Optimization: Investigate approaches to improve reasoning, generalization, reliability, and training efficiency.
• Data Quality & Training: Develop strategies for data curation, filtering, and synthetic data generation to improve training outcomes.
• Evaluation & Benchmarking: Design experiments, evaluation frameworks, and benchmarks to measure model performance, identify failure modes, and guide research priorities.
• Large-Scale Experimentation: Work with distributed training infrastructure and large-scale datasets to support research and model development.
• Research Innovation: Explore emerging approaches in multimodal learning, model alignment, and foundation-model training.

Skills

Multimodal models

Python

PyTorch

JAX

Large-scale experiments

Distributed training

Research instincts

Open-weight models

Research publications/open-source

Tools

Python

PyTorch

JAX

Job description

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI, designing and operating global systems for data capture, labeling, and hardware-enabled workflows used by leading AI labs. We seek an experienced Research Scientist to advance large-scale vision-language and multimodal foundation models.

You will work across model development, from data and training strategies to evaluation, optimization, and deployment.