Staff Research Scientist

Lightfield; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 220,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Meaningful equity

Health insurance

3 weeks PTO

11 holidays

Paid family leave

Wednesdays WFH

Team events

401k

Commuter stipend

Lunch stipend

Job summary

Lightfield is hiring a senior applied researcher to lead world-model research for business applications. You will own projects from initial question to measurable product impact, shaping the lab’s agenda, culture and reputation as it grows.

You will work with AI engineers to translate research into production, publish benchmarks and papers, and mentor teammates. The role reports to the Chief AI Officer and offers equity and a collaborative environment.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of applied research experience in ML or NLP, in industry or academia.
• PhD or MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning or a related field, or equivalent research experience.
• Track record of research that shipped or was published: papers, open-source models, datasets or benchmarks.
• Deep hands-on experience with LLMs, including evaluation, agent design and retrieval. Post-training (SFT, RL, preference optimization) is a plus.
• Rigorous about experimental design and able to distinguish real improvements from noise.
• Strong Python skills and comfortable in production codebases (TypeScript, Node.js, PostgreSQL).
• Ability to drive ambiguous problems independently with visible results and clear communication.

Responsibilities

• Lead research projects in evaluation, benchmarks, deal prediction, simulation and self-improvement.
• Design empirical evaluations of Lightfield’s AI system using LLM-as-judge, rubric-based grading, offline replay and A/B tests.
• Build benchmarks for GTM tasks such as list building, CSV imports, mail intelligence and record updates.
• Create simulated companies with users and email/meeting streams to evaluate the end-to-end system.
• Develop techniques to improve the AI system at world, company and user levels (RL, fine-tuning).
• Model deal probability and ship as product features.
• Improve cost and quality trade-offs across the AI stack, including inference cost.
• Publish research blog posts, open benchmarks, arXiv reports and present at conferences.
• Help build a world-class research team by recruiting and mentoring teammates.

Skills

Applied ML/NLP

LLMs experience

Python

RL techniques

TypeScript

Node.js

PostgreSQL

Education

PhD in Computer Science

MS in ML/CS

Tools

PyTorch

scikit-learn

Git

Docker

Job description

About Lightfield

Lightfield is reimagining CRM as a world model of a business. By learning from emails, meetings, and customer conversations, we’re building a living understanding of how a company works—so AI can help teams anticipate what comes next, make better decisions, and take action.

More than 5,000 companies have used the product since its November launch. We’ve raised more than $70M from Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Maverick Ventures, and Greylock to attack the biggest software category in the world.

We previously built Tome, which reached more than 25 million users, and our team brings experience from Llama, Instagram, Google, and Salesforce.

About The Role

We’re starting Lightfield Research to build a Business World Model through frontier research in simulation, world modeling and self-improvement. We’re hiring applied researchers and research scientists to lead its first projects.

You’ll report directly to Ves Stoyanov, co‑founder and Chief AI Officer, previously at Facebook AI, where he co‑authored RoBERTa and XLM‑R. You’ll work alongside AI engineers who take research into production and GTM experts who help define tasks and quality.

Researchers at Lightfield own projects from the first question through measurable product impact and publication. You’ll help shape the lab’s research agenda, culture and reputation as it grows.

What you’ll do

• Lead research projects in evaluation, benchmarks, deal prediction, simulation and self‑improvement.


• Design empirical evaluations of Lightfield’s AI system using LLM‑as‑judge, rubric‑based grading, offline replay and A/B tests, on both production and offline data.


• Build benchmarks for core GTM tasks such as list building, CSV imports, mail intelligence, record updates and outbound. Measure Lightfield against frontier models and competitors.


• Build simulated companies with users and streams of email, meetings and knowledge, where the right answers are known. Use them to evaluate the full system end to end.


• Develop techniques that let Lightfield improve as it operates, at the world, company and users levels. These include reinforcement learning and, where it pays off, fine‑tuning.


• Model deal probability and the factors behind it, and ship them as product features.


• Improve cost and quality trade‑offs across the AI system, including inference cost.


• Publish research blog posts, open benchmarks, arXiv reports and papers, and present at conferences and meetups.


• Help build a world‑class research team by recruiting and mentoring teammates.

Who you are

• You have 7+ years of applied research experience in ML or NLP, in industry or academia.


• You have a PhD or MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning or a related field, or equivalent research experience.


• You have a track record of research that shipped or was published: papers, open‑source models, datasets or benchmarks.


• You have deep hands‑on experience with LLMs, including evaluation, agent design and retrieval. Post‑training experience (SFT, RL, preference optimization) is a plus.


• You are rigorous about experimental design and can tell a real improvement from noise.


• You write strong Python and are comfortable working in a production codebase (TypeScript, Node.js, PostgreSQL) alongside engineers.


• You can drive an ambiguous problem independently and balance ambitious goals with frequent, visible results.


• You communicate clearly to technical and non‑technical audiences, in writing and in talks.


• You are energized by building AI that businesses depend on to do their jobs.

Nice to have

• Experience building simulations, synthetic data or RL environments.


• Experience with forecasting or predictive modeling on business data.


• Experience creating benchmarks adopted by others.

Benefits & Perks

• Competitive salary


• Meaningful early equity


• Health insurance (medical, dental, vision)


• 3 weeks of PTO


• 11 paid company holidays + we enjoy a winter holiday break


• 3 months of paid family leave


• Wednesdays work from home


• Regular team dinners, events, offsites, and retreats


• 401k plan


• Other perks include: commuter and lunch stipend

Compensation Range: $220K - $300K