Research Scientist/Research Engineer

Transluce; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 500,000; Full time

Job summary

Transluce is a fast-moving research lab in San Francisco building the public AI stack for understanding and debugging AI systems. We are a non-profit focused on steering AI development for the public good.

The role targets strong researchers and engineers to accelerate progress on core LLM-based AI tech, spanning RL, interpretability, and AI agents. Early team member with high impact and collaboration is encouraged.

Qualifications

• Reliable and trustworthy results: meticulous, good experimental design, epistemic self-awareness and transparency.
• Prioritization: be scrappy while balancing appropriately with meticulousness.
• Generative: come up with original, productive ideas for unblocking progress.
• Deep domain knowledge in ML research (interpretability, RL, basic systems performance / GPUs).
• Strong programming ability, including balance between prototyping speed and maintainability.
• Strong communication skills, low ego, openness to feedback.
• High self-bar for final results.
• Ability to learn quickly from teammates and mentors.

Responsibilities

• Prototype to reach signs of life on an initial idea.
• Navigate design space of system architecture and other hyperparameters.
• Design and implement efficient and reliable training and inference pipelines.
• For more senior candidates: direction setting on code architecture, planning and leading projects.

Skills

Programming

Experiment design

ML research

Interpretability

Systems performance

GPU knowledge

Communication

Job description

Salary range

$250,000 - $500,000/year + benefits

Description

Transluce is a fast-moving research lab building the public tech stack for understanding and debugging AI systems. We build world-class, AI-backed analysis tools and use these to set industry standards for evaluation. We are a non-profit with a mission to steer the development of AI for the public good.

About the role

We are looking for strong research scientists and research engineers to accelerate progress on our core LLM-based AI technology, spanning RL, interpretability, and AI agents. As an early member of a highly collaborative team, you will learn and grow quickly, creating technology at the frontier of AI research and with high direct impact.

Core responsibility

Drive results on one of our core research threads; proactively identify and execute on tactical paths forward within a broader team strategy. This includes:

• Prototyping to reach signs of life on an initial idea
• Navigating the design space of system architecture and other hyperparameters
• Designing and implementing efficient and reliable systems (training and inference pipelines)
• For more senior candidates: direction setting on code code architecture, planning and leading projects

Qualities of a strong candidate

• Reliable and trustworthy results: meticulous, good experimental design, epistemic self-awareness and transparency
• Prioritization: be scrappy while balancing appropriately with meticulousness
  • Keep low-level planning connected to high-level goals
• Generative: come up with original, productive ideas for unblocking progress
• Deep domain knowledge in some area of ML research, such as interpretability, RL, basic systems performance / GPUs
• Strong programming ability, including navigating trade-offs between prototyping speed and maintainability
• Strong communication skills, low ego, openness to giving and receiving feedback
• High self-bar for final results
• Ability to learn quickly from teammates and mentors

We are located in San Francisco and enthusiastic to work together in-person. We are open to sponsoring international visas.