Lead Research Engineer, Data Quality

Clera

• $150K — $180K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of experience in AI/ML data evaluation or data quality systems
  • Experience leading technical teams on ambiguous projects
  • Advanced proficiency in Python, Docker, and Linux
  • Knowledge of QC systems, evals, benchmarks, and synthetic data workflows
  • Ability to design metrics and QA/QC processes
  • Strong written communication skills for diverse audiences
  • Experience working with subject-matter experts in domain-specific contexts
  • Background in early-stage startups or fast-paced environments

Responsibilities

  • Lead the data quality team in evaluating tasks across reinforcement learning environments
  • Define data quality strategy through developed QC systems and enforced standards
  • Create new methods for validating synthetic data at scale
  • Collaborate with engineers and experts to address data quality issues
  • Transform research insights into actionable production systems
  • Mentor engineers to uphold standards of technical rigor and execution

Benefits

  • Visa sponsorship availability
  • On-site work in San Francisco, CA
  • Opportunity to shape research culture within a leading-edge AI environment
  • Influence the development of frontier model training systems
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is a senior technical leadership role on the data quality team at an early-stage AI infrastructure company focused on building and scaling reinforcement learning environments for frontier model training. You will own the strategy and systems that measure and improve training data quality, shaping research culture around what makes agent data genuinely useful rather than just superficially correct.
What You'll Do
  • Lead the data quality team in building systems that evaluate thousands of tasks across RL environments, synthetic data, benchmarks, and domain-specific workflows.
  • Define the data quality strategy by building QC systems, enforcing standards, and designing experiments to grade agent outputs.
  • Develop new methods for validating synthetic data at scale, including failure-mode analysis, task mutation checks, and trajectory auditing.
  • Partner with research engineers, domain experts, and data vendors to diagnose quality issues and improve data generation workflows.
  • Turn qualitative research insights into production systems: internal tools, dashboards, validation pipelines, and feedback loops.
  • Mentor research engineers to maintain a high bar for technical rigor, clarity, and execution speed.
What We're Looking For
  • 5+ years of relevant engineering or research experience, specifically building systems for AI/ML data evaluation or data quality.
  • Proven track record leading technical teams on ambiguous projects from problem definition through implementation and iteration.
  • Advanced proficiency in Python, Docker, and Linux environments.
  • Experience building QC systems, evals, benchmarks, synthetic data pipelines, validation workflows, or model evaluation infrastructure.
  • Deep intuition for what makes training tasks realistic, learnable, diverse, reliable, and useful for AI agents.
  • Research-oriented understanding of AI evals and post-training, beyond surface-level agent tooling projects.
  • Comfort designing metrics, experiments, and QA/QC processes, not just executing them.
  • Strong written communication skills, with the ability to explain methodology clearly to diverse audiences.
  • Experience working with subject-matter experts to capture domain judgment and convert it into scalable review or generation systems.
  • Early-stage startup experience and the ability to work independently in fast-paced environments.
Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: $150,000 to $180,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is available.
Location

On-site in San Francisco, CA, USA. The team also has a presence in Singapore.

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