Senior Data Scientist (Recommendation Systems)
Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Right Balance provides top-tier technology talent for innovative companies in the US. We’re in the top 50 companies to watch in LA.
Our client is a VC-funded early-stage US-based startup with an ambitious vision to revolutionize the Real Estate space with a solution allowing home owners to sell their homes by themselves. Join an exciting startup as a part of the initial team, make impact, and work on a new and exciting idea!
The Role: We're seeking a Senior/Staff Software Engineer with deep expertise in LLM applications. The ideal candidate will bridge technical excellence with business problem-solving to help us build innovative AI solutions from the ground up.
Key Responsibilities
- Design and develop applications leveraging LLM technologies
- Build robust, scalable, and production-ready systems
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into technical solutions
- Evaluate and implement state-of-the-art AI techniques for product development
- Contribute to technical architecture and engineering best practices
Technical Focus Areas
- Prompt Engineering - Ability to design effective prompts for different use cases
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) - Knowledge of embedding models, vector databases, and retrieval strategies
- Agent Building - Understanding of autonomous AI systems and orchestration
- Context Window Management - Techniques for working with and optimizing large context windows
- System Design - Architecture of LLM-powered applications at scale
- Fine-tuning Approaches - Knowledge of adaptation techniques like PEFT, LoRA, etc.
Startup Fit & Mindset
- Thrives in ambiguous, fast-paced environments with minimal direction
- Demonstrates high agency and self-starter mentality
- Embraces “get things done” attitude with focus on tangible results
- Comfortable wearing multiple hats and rapidly shifting priorities
- Bias toward action and iteration over perfect solutions
- History of driving projects forward independently
- Ability to make smart trade-offs between speed and technical debt
- Learn and evolve your skills using the latest and greatest technology tools in a rapidly growing company
- Learn from the best people around you. We constantly challenge the status quo and invent new ways of building a great product.
- 100% remote. Work anywhere, whether it is remotely in the comfort of your home, in a shared co-working space, in an RV on the beach, or while being a nomad in another country.
- Work on challenging problems, innovate, and positively impact many people's lives while having fun doing it.
Minimum Requirements
- Upper-intermediate to fluent speaking and writing English. Able to have a real-time conversation.
- 5+ years of full-time hands-on Data Science/Software Development experience.
- 2+ years of full-time hands-on AI Development experience.
- Full-time hands-on experience with LLM, LlamaIndex, LangChain, Hugging Face
- Demonstrated experience building applications or products with LLMs
- Strong programming skills and software engineering fundamentals
- Experience working in venture-backed startups.
- Experience working with a non-technical entrepreneur.
- Proactiveness: ability to initiate conversations, figure out the requirements, and come up with solutions to vague problem definitions.
- Self-sufficiency: experience achieving results with minimal supervision and guidance.
- Prior startup experience, especially in early-stage environments
- Experience building and deploying production AI systems
- Track record of solving complex business problems with technical solutions
- Bonus: Open-source contributions or personal projects involving LLMs
- Bonus: Real estate industry experience or understanding is a plus
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent demonstrated ability.
The majority of our clients are venture-backed startups at the growth stage. Usually, at this stage, the company already achieved a product-market fit and is looking to expand rapidly. That’s where we bring the best engineering practices, strong architecture, the latest technologies, and consistent processes to help companies scale.