Researcher / Senior Researcher

Epoch AI; United States; On-site; USD 100,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive global benefits including health insurance

Generous paid time off (PTO)

Paid work trips and conferences

Access to well-equipped offices

Job summary

A leading AI research institute is seeking a Researcher to define research directions and manage new projects. This fully remote role involves estimating trends in AI, evaluating model releases, and engaging with external partners. Ideal candidates will possess strong research and coding skills, along with a passion for learning. Compensation ranges from $100,000 to $250,000 depending on experience, with a comprehensive benefits program that promotes a flexible work environment.

Qualifications

• Ability to absorb information quickly across diverse AI domains.
• Comfortable making estimates with limited information.
• Experience in at least one part of the AI pipeline.

Responsibilities

• Develop new research projects and investigate crucial AI questions.
• Make forecasts about compute resources and future capabilities.
• Track new models and benchmark results to understand AI trends.
• Evaluate the credibility of technical claims and benchmark scores.
• Manage various projects and client inquiries.

Skills

Curiosity and learning speed

Estimation and forecasting skills

Prior research experience

Strong coding skills

Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Job description

Epoch AI is looking for a Researcher to help develop research agendas for Epoch and manage new research projects.

About the role

We're hiring a Researcher, reporting to Senior Researcher JS Denain, to help define our future research directions and kick off new investigations into the most important trends in AI. You will also help manage select consulting engagements with external partners.

Our work takes several forms:

— Research reports: JS’s team oversees exploration into new topics spanning the entire AI production pipeline: from compute stocks and datacenter power requirements, to model capabilities and benchmark performance, to adoption trends and economic impacts.

— Gradient Updates: Our weekly newsletter offering timely commentary on important developments in AI, from the author’s perspective.

— Consultations: We address clients’ AI-related questions. This includes governments, some companies like Bridgewater AIA Labs, and nonprofits like Sentinel Bio.

Examples of projects you might work on:

— Estimating how quickly inference costs are falling at a given capability level

— Studying catch‑up dynamics between frontier and open‑source models

— Correlating capability benchmarks with real‑world adoption metrics

— Forecasting robotics capabilities and production trends

— [Your project idea here!]

This role is fully remote and we are able to hire in many countries, although we prefer candidates who overlap significantly with the Pacific timezone (UTC-8/-7) as JS and other researchers are based there.

Please do not include a cover letter, photograph, or headshot of yourself, or any personal information that is not relevant to the role for which you're applying (including marital status, age, identity traits, etc.).

Applications are rolling—apply soon!

Key Responsibilities

• Pitching and developing new research projects; kick‑off new investigations into the most important questions in AI.
• Making estimates and forecasts based on limited information for quantities like compute resources, power supply curves, or future capabilities.
• Staying at the frontier: tracking new model releases, technical reports, and benchmark results, and identifying which developments matter most for understanding AI trends.
• Evaluating technical claims to assess whether reported benchmark scores, training costs, or algorithmic improvements are credible. For example, what should we think of a lab’s reports of achieving IMO gold, or claims about DeepSeek‑R1’s training costs?
• Managing multiple workstreams with varying timelines, from rapid‑turnaround client questions to longer research projects.

What we are looking for

• Curiosity and learning speed: You can rapidly absorb new information across diverse domains and stay at the forefront of a fast‑moving field. You seek out new research and enjoy diving into unfamiliar topics.
• Estimation and forecasting skills: You’re comfortable making quantitative estimates with limited information and reason clearly about uncertainty.
• Prior research experience in at least one part of the AI pipeline (hardware, datacenters, benchmarks, AI research, etc.).
• Strong coding skills for running and iterating on data analyses.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Nice to have: Prior forecasting experience, familiarity with Epoch’s body of work.
• We expect great candidates might have prior experience as analysts or researchers, but this is not a requirement.

If you don't tick all these boxes but think you would be a great fit, please consider applying anyway!

Compensation & Benefits

• Annual salary between $100,000 and $250,000 USD, depending on prior experience.
• Salaries are not restricted to USD, and contracts and payments are usually in local currencies. Conversions are based on one‑year average exchange rates.
• Remote environment, including flexible work hours and schedule.
• Competitive global benefits program, including a comprehensive health insurance program— including supplemental benefits specific to a local country, as available and mandated by local law—and life insurance and a pension plan, if applicable in your country.
• Generous paid time off (PTO), including no specific annual limit, with 30 days PTO per year protected, unlimited personal and sick leave, and 4 months paid parental leave for permanent staff with at least 12 months of tenure (prorated parental leave if less than 12 months).
• A flexible and generous expense policy for you to spend on equipment and a large range of productivity tools or learning/development opportunities you might find valuable, subject to regulations and manager approval.
• Paid work trips, including 3 staff retreats per year and relevant conferences.
• Access to our very well‑equipped offices in Berkeley, California, including paid meals, snacks, gym, and more. All staff, independently of where they are based, have access to the office for at least 20 days each year.

Additional Information

While we welcome applicants from all time zones, we prefer candidates who can overlap with UTC–8 (Pacific Time), as the team lead works in this time zone. We also prefer candidates who can travel: we hold three team retreats per year.

Please submit all of your application materials in English and note that we require professional level English proficiency.

Epoch is committed to building an inclusive, equitable, and supportive community for you to thrive and do your best work. We’re committed to finding the best people for our team, so please don’t hesitate to apply for a role regardless of your age, gender identity/expression, political identity, personal preferences, physical abilities, veteran status, neurodiversity or any other background. Please email [e-mail] if you have any questions about this role, accessibility requests, or if you want to request an extension to the application deadline. However, we will not review applications submitted to this email address; please submit your application through the link on this page.

About Epoch AI

Epoch AI is a research institute that investigates trends in machine learning and the economic consequences of AI. Our mission is to develop a comprehensive, publicly accessible knowledge base on AI that informs policymakers, industry leaders, and society at large.

We strive to achieve both rigor and accessibility to our work, as exemplified by some of our most successful projects, including our database of AI models and our AI trends dashboard. Our body of research includes our work on compute trends (IJCN 2022), data scarcity (ICML 2024), and algorithmic progress (NeurIPS 2024). You can read more about our work and mission on our website and in this Time profile.