AI Research Scientist / Engineer

AI Research Scientist / Engineer

Menlo Park, CA | On-Site | Full-Time / Direct Hire

Client Opportunity | Through Phizenix (WBENC & Minority-Certified Recruiting Partner)

Join a trailblazing AI startup that's reinventing how large language models are built—with diffusion-powered LLMs that generate faster, adapt smarter, and handle multimodal data like no other.

We’re looking for a Research Scientist / Engineer who’s ready to move beyond traditional autoregressive methods and help shape the next wave of generative AI . You'll collaborate with pioneers in AI research, design novel model architectures, and scale your ideas from paper to production.

What You'll Be Doing

Design and refine LLM architectures built on a diffusion-first paradigm

Develop cutting-edge training strategies and custom loss functions

Translate research into real-world systems for enterprise-scale deployments

Explore constraint-aware generation and controlled outputs

Push the limits of model efficiency, scalability, and multi-modal capabilities

Must-Haves

PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field

Hands-on experience with PyTorch and LLM fundamentals (transformers, KV caching, etc.)

Familiarity with diffusion models and distributed model training

Solid research-to-production mindset with 2+ years in an ML / AI role

Bonus Points For

Training LLMs from scratch and optimizing large-scale runs

Advanced training tactics (e.g., mixed precision, gradient accumulation)

Experience with cross-modal modeling and inference frameworks like vLLM, TensorRT

A background in model efficiency, optimization theory, or infrastructure-aware research

At Phizenix , we’re proud to partner with diverse and inclusive teams building AI that matters. If you're ready to build, innovate, and publish with one of the boldest teams in AI— this is your moment .

California Pay Range

$180,000 - $200,000 USD