Founding Engineer - ML Research

Clera

$220K — $300K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 3-10 years of experience in ML research, applied ML, or ML systems engineering.
  • Deep familiarity with PyTorch, JAX, and/or TensorFlow.
  • Strong command of model architectures including Transformers, Diffusion models, or RLHF.
  • Solid foundations in data processing, distributed training, and evaluation metrics.
  • Ability to translate research papers into working prototypes and production-ready code.
  • Curiosity for emerging ML paradigms such as multimodality and synthetic data.
  • Comfort operating in a fast-moving, early-stage environment.

Responsibilities

  • Design, train, and evaluate ML models including LLMs and domain-specific architectures.
  • Develop scalable experimentation pipelines for data and model training.
  • Collaborate with data and infrastructure teams to optimize training throughput.
  • Contribute to open research and emerging techniques in generative AI.
  • Rapidly prototype research insights for tools and models.
  • Set foundational standards for research rigor and documentation.

Benefits

  • Being part of a founding team with significant influence over technical culture.
  • Opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge ML research activities.
  • Direct collaboration with leading AI labs and enterprises.
  • Engagement in open research within a pioneering AI field.
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is a founding-team ML research engineering role at an AI training and evaluation company serving top frontier AI labs and enterprises. You'll build the research backbone from the ground up, sitting at the intersection of applied machine learning and systems engineering - with direct influence over technical culture and research direction.
What You'll Do
  • Design, train, and evaluate ML models including LLMs, diffusion models, and domain-specific architectures.
  • Develop scalable experimentation pipelines spanning data, model training, and evaluation workflows.
  • Collaborate with data and infrastructure teams to optimize training throughput and data quality.
  • Contribute to open research, internal benchmarks, and emerging techniques in multimodal and generative AI.
  • Rapidly prototype research insights and productionize them into usable tools and models.
  • Set foundational standards for research rigor, documentation, and reproducibility across the team.
What We're Looking For
  • 3-10 years of experience in ML research, applied ML, or ML systems engineering.
  • Deep familiarity with PyTorch, JAX, and/or TensorFlow.
  • Strong command of model architectures including Transformers, Diffusion models, or RLHF.
  • Solid foundations in data processing, distributed training, and evaluation metrics.
  • Ability to translate research papers into working prototypes and production-ready code.
  • Curiosity for emerging ML paradigms such as multimodality, synthetic data, self-learning, and agentic systems.
  • Comfort operating in a fast-moving, early-stage environment where you're building from zero to one.
Compensation & Benefits

Base salary range: $220,000 - $300,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
Location

On-site in Mountain View, California, USA. Remote work is not available for this position.

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Clera

  • Founding Account Executive
    $80K — $160K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Enterprise Technology
    In-Person
  • Account Executive
    $93K — $118K *
    Los Angeles, CA 90011 (Los Angeles County)
    Business Services
    In-Person
  • Founding Engineer - ML Research
    $220K — $300K *
    Mountain View, CA 94040 (Santa Clara County)
    Consumer Technology
    In-Person
  • Staff Engineer
    $250K — $300K *
    Los Angeles, CA 90011 (Los Angeles County)
    Consumer Technology
    In-Person
  • Marketing & Events Lead
    $100K — $150K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Consumer Technology
    In-Person

More Consumer Technology Jobs

Find similar Founding Engineer - ML Research jobs: