AI research scientist

• Work on a high-impact research agenda on large language models and agentic systems, being a core member of a team working on projects involving data synthesis, novel model architectures, model training, evaluation, and production deployment

• Help design and execute post-training experiments using supervised fine-tuning, reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), RLAIF, DPO, etc., and emerging alignment techniques, with a focus on improving multi-step reasoning, planning, and tool use in enterprise agentic workflows

• Build novel evaluation benchmarks and methodologies that push beyond existing limitations, establishing rigorous measures for how well models perform on complex, real-world enterprise tasks

• Develop scalable data synthesis and curation pipelines that generate the high-quality training signal driving model improvement, including LLM-as-judge frameworks, synthetic data generation, and adversarial dataset construction

• Shape WRITER's model architecture and training roadmap by translating your research insights into concrete improvements to our enterprise-grade LLMs, working hand-in-hand with research engineering and product teams

• Publish and present original research at top-tier venues - NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, ACL, and others - representing WRITER at the frontier of the field and contributing to the broader scientific community

• Work closely with fellow researchers and engineers on the team, helping set a high bar for scientific rigor, experimental design, and research culture

• 4+ years of hands-on ML research experience (can include years obtaining advanced degree), with deep expertise in large language model pre-training and post-training - you've trained models at scale, debugged distributed jobs, and shipped improvements that made a measurable difference

• A Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, NLP, or a related field, or equivalent demonstrated research experience with a strong portfolio of independent, published work

• Expert-level knowledge of post-training methods including SFT, RLHF, RLAIF, DPO, GRPO, and related alignment and reasoning techniques, with a track record of applying them to real, production-grade systems

• Strong command of Python and PyTorch (or JAX), with the engineering depth to build and scale training pipelines, evaluation infrastructure, and data synthesis workflows yourself - not just direct others to do it

• One or more publications at a competitive ML/AI venue (NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, ACL, EMNLP, or equivalent), evidencing your ability to originate ideas and execute on a multi-month research agenda independently

• Hands-on experience designing or evaluating agentic systems: models that plan, reason through multi-step tasks, use tools, and recover gracefully from errors, with a nuanced understanding of where they break and how to fix them

• The instincts and orientation that match WRITER's values:
• you Connect: you collaborate openly across research, engineering, and product and communicate complex ideas with clarity to both technical and non-technical audiences

• you Challenge: you ask the hard questions, push back on conventional wisdom, and pursue the research directions others haven't tried yet

• you Own: you drive your projects end-to-end with urgency, take accountability for results, and care deeply about the impact your work has on real customers

• Generous PTO, plus company holidays

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family

• Paid parental leave for all parents (16 weeks)

• Fertility and family planning support

• Early-detection cancer testing through Galleri

• Flexible spending account and dependent FSA options

• Health savings account for eligible plans with company contribution

• Annual work-life stipends for:
• Wellness stipend for gym, massage/chiropractor, personal training, etc.

• Learning and development stipend

• Company-wide off-sites and team off-sites

• Competitive compensation, company stock options and 401k

WRITER is an equal-opportunity employer and is committed to diversity. We don't make hiring or employment decisions based on race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other basis protected by applicable local, state or federal law. Under the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. By submitting your application on the application page, you acknowledge and agree to WRITER's Global Candidate Privacy Notice .