Senior Multimodal LLM Post-Training Scientist (SFT/RL)

Apple Inc.; San Diego, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 175,000 - 309,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Apple benefits

Employee stock programs

Educational reimbursement

Relocation assistance

Medical and dental coverage

Job summary

Apple Inc. in San Diego, CA is seeking a Senior ML Researcher focused on foundation model post-training, including SFT and RL, to design and deliver models with real-world product impact.

You will collaborate with research scientists, engineers, and product teams to advance multimodal capabilities, build evaluations, and run experiments that translate theory into practical tools for millions of creators.

Qualifications

• MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Minimum 4+ years of research experience in Multi‑Modal LLM training and evaluation.
• Proven track record in multimodal SFT plus at least one of distillation, preference optimization, or online RL, backed by shipped models or rigorous experiments.
• Strong programming skills in Python and at least one deep learning framework, such as JAX or PyTorch.
• Ability to translate problem statements into dataset requirements, neural network design, and loss functions.

Responsibilities

• Formulate hypotheses for a use case.
• Define data collection and annotation.
• Build evaluations of model capabilities.
• Apply SFT, advanced reward modeling, RL techniques, and distillation to develop and improve the post‑training recipe.
• Execute experiments, validate results, and communicate findings to the broader team.
• Collaborate with research scientists, engineers, and product teams to ship AI capabilities in Apple’s products.

Skills

Python

Deep learning

JAX

PyTorch

Problem solving

Multimodal research

Education

MS in CS/ML or related field

PhD (preferred)

Tools

JAX

PyTorch

Job description

Apple Inc. in San Diego, CA is seeking a Senior ML Researcher focused on foundation model post-training, including SFT and RL, to design and deliver models with real-world product impact.

You will collaborate with research scientists, engineers, and product teams to advance multimodal capabilities, build evaluations, and run experiments that translate theory into practical tools for millions of creators.