Member of Technical Staff - Research Engineer, RL Environments

Preference Model
San Francisco, CA
On-site

Who this role is best for

Experienced ML engineers with deep reinforcement learning expertise and a passion for aligning AI behavior will find this high-autonomy, research-driven role in San Francisco appealing.

Best fit for

  • Experienced ML engineers with reinforcement learning and LLM alignment expertise
    — “We’re hiring experienced Machine Learning Engineers to design and build reinforcement learning environments”
  • Individuals with strong systems programming skills and a focus on production readiness
    — “delivering your work into production training runs”

Things to consider

  • Role demands a high level of independence, as ownership of environments is emphasized
    — “full ownership and autonomy of the environments you build”
  • Candidates should be prepared to work in a fast-moving startup with limited team size
    — “small, high-ownership team”

How to stand out

  • Highlight production RL environment experience and alignment-focused reward function design
    — “Design and build RL environments and reward functions that produce clean, learnable signals”
  • Showcase deep knowledge of modern LLM training and inference systems
    — “deep understanding of transformer internals, training/inference of modern LLMs”
  • Demonstrate ability to translate cutting-edge research into practical code solutions
    — “develop novel approaches, and realize them in code”
  • Emphasize your ability to maintain high throughput and adapt to feedback quickly
    — “Ability to meet throughput expectations and respond quickly to feedback”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Company

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • development of RL environments
  • successful implementation of reward functions
Typical background
5+ years in machine learningexperience with LLMs

Skills & requirements

Required

Reinforcement LearningMachine LearningPythonSystems Programming

Preferred

Transformer ModelsInference Libraries

Stack & domain

PythonPyTorchJAXProblem SolvingCreativityMachine LearningReinforcement Learning

About the role

Original posting from Preference Model via Ashby

ABOUT US

Preference Model is a superintelligence data research company. We build RL environments for training capable, better-aligned superintelligences.

Almost every aspect of how a model behaves is shaped by the reward signals it's trained on. The biggest problem with AIs today is that they don't always do what we intend. Sometimes that's because they aren't capable enough, and sometimes it's because they aren't aligned. Both problems come down to the training objectives.

We're trying to address both of these issues in the most direct, highest leverage way available to us, which today means researching how to build RL environments better, not just for the AIs of today but for the AIs as they will be when they outsmart us.

Over the past year, we've built RL environments for several frontier labs, and we're backed by $16M in seed funding led by a16z. Our founding team has previous experience on Anthropic’s data team building data infrastructure, and datasets behind Claude.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We’re hiring experienced Machine Learning Engineers to design and build reinforcement learning environments to safely advance model capabilities in machine learning research and engineering. Specifically, you'll be teaching frontier models to do the work of an ML engineer or researcher at a frontier lab.

This role blends research and engineering. It will require you to stay up to date with the latest research, develop novel approaches, and realize them in code. You will have full ownership and autonomy of the environments you build. Your work will include designing and implementing RL environments, conducting experiments and evaluations, delivering your work into production training runs, and collaborating with other researchers and engineers.

You will join our Capabilities org, a small, high-ownership team and contribute directly to the data layer that powers frontier LLM capability.

Note: This role is only for experienced ML Engineers. We have a separate opening for New Grads https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Preference-Model/44642065-e592-44ba-810d-a019703463b6.

WHAT YOU WILL DO:

  • Design and build RL environments and reward functions that produce clean, learnable signals for frontier models on ML research and engineering tasks
  • Build deep expertise across the frontier of ML research, training, and inference infrastructure
  • Collaborate with others to brainstorm and create new ideas and tools to improve the environment building process

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR (QUALIFICATIONS):

  • 5+ years of experience working in machine learning or research, primarily on LLMs and transformer models
  • You have strong ML fundamentals and broad research interests. You read many papers or tutorials, understand topics deeply and have the creativity to translate them into RLVR problems
  • Proficiency in Python and systems programming and at least one of PyTorch or JAX
  • Problem solvers who take ownership and drives solutions end-to-end
  • Passion for staying current with the rapidly evolving ML infrastructure landscape
  • Ability to meet throughput expectations and respond quickly to feedback

YOU MAY BE A GOOD FIT IF YOU ALSO:

  • Have expert knowledge in an active DL/ML research area, with publications or public code to show for it. Research experience (PhD, MS) is a big plus
  • Have deep understanding of transformer internals, training/inference of modern LLMs, experience with inference libraries (vLLM, SGLang, etc)
  • Have strong expertise in kernel development (CUDA, Triton, Pallas)
  • Have built complex interactive RL environments

WHAT WE OFFER:

  • Competitive cash and equity compensation (>90th percentile)
  • Ownership and autonomy in a fast moving startup environment
  • Opportunity to work with top machine learning engineers
  • Health, vision, dental, benefits
  • 401K match
  • Lunch provided everyday onsite
  • Weekly snack orders
  • Visa sponsorship & relocation support available

We value diverse perspectives and experiences. If you're excited about this role but don't check every box, we still encourage you to apply.

Source: Preference Model careers (Ashby)

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