VP of Research, Machine Learning

Darwin Recruitment; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 250,000 - 420,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Cash plus equity

Health, dental and life insurance

401(k) match

Job summary

Darwin Recruitment is seeking a VP of Research, Machine Learning to own the intelligence behind a new AI product used by millions. You will steer core capabilities, memory, reasoning, planning and orchestration with a founder mindset.

Lead evaluation, safety and guardrail strategy, and decide between new architectures or adapting frontier models. Remote UK/US-friendly role with strong backing and equity options.

Qualifications

• Deep experience building or evolving ML systems used in production.
• Strong judgment on model behaviour, failure modes and long term trade offs.

Responsibilities

• Set the research direction for core intelligence: context, memory, reasoning, planning and orchestration.
• Decide when to build new model architectures versus adapting frontier open source or commercial models.
• Define evaluation frameworks that measure real world usefulness, robustness and safety, not benchmark vanity.
• Own alignment, safety and guardrail strategy as core product priorities.
• Guide work on frontier techniques including retrieval augmented training, mixture of experts, distillation, multi agent orchestration and multimodal systems.
• Partner closely with product and application engineering, and set the bar for research rigor across the company.

Skills

ML systems

Model behavior

Evaluation & correctness

Decision making

Founder mindset

Python

PyTorch/JAX

GPU training

Tools

Python

PyTorch

JAX

CUDA/GPU

Job description

VP of Research, Machine Learning | Fully Remote (US)

Founding team. Serious backing. Real ownership.

We’re partnering with a newly launched AI company backed by an initial $100M commitment, building AI native productivity products for millions of everyday users. Their first product, an agentic email platform, is already in beta, and it’s the first of a planned portfolio of proactive AI applications that work with minimal prompting.

They’re now hiring a VP of Research, Machine Learning to own the intelligence behind the product: how the AI reasons, remembers, plans and improves in a product people use every day.

What you’ll do

• Set the research direction for core intelligence: context, memory, reasoning, planning and orchestration
• Decide when to build new model architectures versus adapting frontier open source or commercial models
• Define evaluation frameworks that measure real world usefulness, robustness and safety, not benchmark vanity
• Own alignment, safety and guardrail strategy as core product priorities
• Guide work on frontier techniques including retrieval augmented training, mixture of experts, distillation, multi agent orchestration and multimodal systems
• Partner closely with product and application engineering, and set the bar for research rigour across the company

What you’ll bring

• Deep experience building or evolving ML systems used in production
• Strong judgment on model behaviour, failure modes and long term trade offs
• A builder’s mindset and an obsession with evaluation and correctness
• Comfort making high impact decisions with incomplete information
• A founder mentality rather than a manager mentality
• Stack: Python, PyTorch / JAX, GPU based training and inference

This role suits someone who wants to ship intelligence into a real product, not someone focused mainly on publishing or running a large research organisation.

Why join

• Founding stage influence with significant capital already secured
• 30+ hires planned across Engineering, AI and Product
• 100% remote across the US
• Salary is extremely negotiable for the right person
• Cash plus equity, with health, dental and life insurance and a 401(k) match

Candidates must be based in the US and authorised to work here without visa sponsorship.