Founding Research Engineer
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Role Details
Company: US-based applied AI startup
Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Employment Type: Full-time
Work Arrangement: On-site
Experience: 1–6 years
Visa Sponsorship: Available
About the Company
An applied AI company developing autonomous agents that execute complex finance and operational workflows within enterprise systems. The company has raised $8M and works with Fortune 500 customers across consumer goods, distribution, technology, and energy. Its team includes professionals from leading AI research labs and technology companies.
About the Role
The company is seeking a Founding Research Engineer to develop and scale AI agents capable of executing complex enterprise workflows safely and reliably. The role combines machine learning, software engineering, and applied AI research, with ownership of critical systems from initial design through production deployment.
Responsibilities
Build reliable AI agents with self-checking and verification capabilities.
Develop agent workflows, RAG systems, and model evaluation tools.
Build secure infrastructure and optimize AI inference for enterprise systems.
Improve model performance and productionize AI pipelines.
Collaborate with enterprise customers on technical projects.
Contribute to product strategy and engineering standards.
Requirements
1–6 years of software or machine learning engineering experience.
Proven ability to write production code and ship software within a team codebase.
Machine learning experience through research, internships, or professional work.
Hands-on experience with LLMs, AI platforms, agent workflows, or model evaluation.
Strong engineering skills in building, deploying, and maintaining production systems.
Benefits
Competitive compensation and potential equity.
Opportunity to work on challenging enterprise AI problems.
Direct impact on product development and technical strategy.
High ownership, minimal bureaucracy, and a fast-moving engineering environment.
Visa sponsorship available.
Interview Process
Initial screening.
Technical deep dive and problem-solving.
On-site interview with the founders.
Offer and hiring.
🌍 Remote from anywhere in the globe
Workplace, Culture & Diversity
Corporate culture is essential to allow the organization to differentiate itself. In terms of image on the one hand, it has strengths both internally and externally to consumers. It is indeed a source of cohesion and motivation of employees and it limits conflicts. With customers, it conveys a positive image and can develop a feeling of closeness to the company or even become a criterion of choice.
About Fractal Talent
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