Research Engineer, Large-Scale Training

Together AI
San Francisco, CA
On-site

Who this role is best for

Geared toward candidates comfortable with optimizing distributed training systems and integrating new model architectures, this mid-level role suits those with strong technical and collaborative skills in San Francisco.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with mid-level experience in distributed training and a strong background in ML systems research
    — “turn cutting-edge research on efficient foundation model training into robust, high-performance systems”
  • Individuals who can independently solve ambiguous performance issues in multi-GPU environments
    — “demonstrated ability to independently take ambiguous performance or infrastructure problems from investigation through deployment”

Things to consider

  • The role demands a high level of autonomy in solving complex infrastructure problems
    — “demonstrated ability to independently take ambiguous performance or infrastructure problems”
  • Strong emphasis on Python and PyTorch proficiency with efficient code writing
    — “strong programming skills in Python and PyTorch, with an emphasis on writing efficient, maintainable code”

How to stand out

  • Highlight experience with distributed training frameworks like FSDP or DeepSpeed in your resume
    — “experience with large-scale training frameworks such as FSDP, DeepSpeed, Megatron-LM”
  • Emphasize contributions to open-source ML projects or production systems
    — “contributions to widely used open-source ML or ML systems projects”
  • Showcase your ability to optimize GPU memory and communication in training systems
    — “profile distributed training workloads to identify and eliminate bottlenecks across compute, memory, and communication”
  • Demonstrate your capability to validate training correctness and convergence for large models
    — “integrate new model architectures, validate training correctness and convergence”
  • Position yourself as a bridge between research and engineering teams
    — “partner closely with Research Scientists to productionize novel training methods”
Pace · SteadyCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · TeamLevel · Mid

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

What success looks like

  • turn cutting-edge research on efficient foundation model training into robust, high-performance systems
  • profile and optimize core components of Together's large-scale training infrastructure
  • validate training correctness and convergence
Typical background
Strong programming skills in Python and PyTorchHands-on experience training or fine-tuning large neural networks

Skills & requirements

Required

PythonPyTorchMulti-gpu Or Multi-node EnvironmentsGPU ArchitectureMixed-precision TrainingDistributed Training ParadigmsCommunication CollectivesLarge-scale Training Frameworks

Preferred

CUDATritonNCCLNvshmemFSDPDeepspeedMegatron-lmCustom Distributed Training Systems

Stack & domain

PythonPyTorchGPU ArchitectureMixed-precision TrainingDistributed TrainingCUDATritonNCCLNvshmemFSDPDeepspeedMegatron-lmCustom Distributed Training SystemsCommunicationCollaborationProblem-solvingAdaptabilityTeamworkLeadershipMachine LearningNatural Language ProcessingML SystemsLarge-scale TrainingModel TrainingModel Evaluation

About the role

Original posting from Together AI via Greenhouse

About the Role

The Model Shaping team at Together AI works on products and research for tailoring open foundation models to downstream applications. We build services that allow machine learning developers to choose the best models for their tasks and further improve these models using domain-specific data. In addition, we develop new methods for more efficient model training and evaluation, drawing inspiration from a broad spectrum of ideas across machine learning, natural language processing, and ML systems.

As a Research Engineer on the Scaling Team within Model Shaping, you will turn cutting-edge research on efficient foundation model training into robust, high-performance systems. You will profile and optimize Together's training infrastructure, identify performance bottlenecks across the stack, and implement state-of-the-art techniques from both the research literature and our own scientists in production environments.

Your work will directly shape the fine-tuning experience of Together's customers. You will rapidly bring newly released open-source models onto the Model Shaping platform, ensuring they train efficiently and reliably across diverse customer workloads. Working closely with Research Scientists, you will also build the experimental infrastructure that accelerates research and enables validated ideas to be deployed reliably at scale.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and optimize core components of Together's large-scale training infrastructure.

Integrate new model architectures, validate training correctness and convergence, and optimize performance for production fine-tuning workloads.

Profile distributed training workloads to identify and eliminate bottlenecks across compute, memory, and communication.

Design and execute experiments to validate performance hypotheses and benchmark new approaches against state-of-the-art methods.

Partner closely with Research Scientists to productionize novel training methods and contribute to publications and open-source releases.

Rapidly enable support for newly released open-source foundation models on the Together platform.

Build and maintain experimental infrastructure that accelerates research while ensuring production-quality reliability and scalability.

Requirements

Demonstrated ability to independently take ambiguous performance or infrastructure problems from investigation through deployment.

Strong programming skills in Python and PyTorch, with an emphasis on writing efficient, maintainable code.

Hands-on experience training or fine-tuning large neural networks in multi-GPU or multi-node environments.

Solid understanding of ML systems fundamentals, including GPU architecture, mixed-precision training, and distributed training paradigms such as data, tensor, pipeline, or expert parallelism.

Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with both researchers and engineers.

Passion for staying current with advances in AI research and applying them to real-world systems.

Excitement about translating cutting-edge research into production systems that deliver customer impact.

Nice to Have

Experience writing optimized NVIDIA GPU kernels using CUDA or Triton, or implementing communication collectives with technologies such as NCCL or NVSHMEM.

Experience with large-scale training frameworks such as FSDP, DeepSpeed, Megatron-LM, or custom distributed training systems.

Experience optimizing distributed training for compute efficiency, memory efficiency, or scalability.

Experience running and managing large-scale GPU experiments, including scheduling, monitoring, and fault tolerance.

Contributions to widely used open-source ML or ML systems projects.

Experience building or operating ML products or managed services used by external customers.

About Together AI

Together AI is a research-driven artificial intelligence company. We believe open and transparent AI systems will drive innovation and create the best outcomes for society, and together we are on a mission to significantly lower the cost of modern AI systems by co-designing software, hardware, algorithms, and models. We have contributed to leading open-source research, models, and datasets to advance the frontier of AI, and our team has been behind technological advancement such as FlashAttention, ATLAS, RedPajama, and Mamba. We invite you to join a passionate group of researchers in our journey in building the next generation AI infrastructure.

Compensation

We offer competitive compensation, startup equity, health insurance, and other benefits. The US base salary range for this full-time position is $200,000 - $290,000. Our salary ranges are determined by location, level and role. Individual compensation will be determined by experience, skills, and job-related knowledge.

Equal Opportunity

Together AI is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is proud to offer equal employment opportunity to everyone regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, and more.

Please see our privacy policy at https://www.together.ai/privacy

Source: Together AI careers (Greenhouse)

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