Research Engineer -- Vision and Vision-Language Models

Research Engineer - Vision & Vision-Language Models, you will be a core contributor on Zyphra’s Vision Team, building the next generation of models for image understanding, computer use, and other agentic visual tasks.

About Zyphra

• Our research methodology is grounded in methodical, step-by-step approaches to ambitious goals. Both deep research and engineering excellence are equally valued
• We strongly value new and crazy ideas and are very willing to bet big on new ideas
• We value rate of learning and growth, not just what someone has already done

Responsibilities

• You will work across the full model development stack, from sourcing and generating data to pretraining, post-training, reinforcement learning, and evaluation. The Vision Team owns its models end-to-end, and you will have the opportunity to contribute wherever you can have the greatest impact.
• We care strongly about rate of learning, research taste, and ability to execute. Previous experience training vision-language models is valuable, but not required.
• End-to-end pretraining and post-training of vision-language models

Large-scale vision and multimodal training runs

• Vision and multimodal dataset sourcing, generation, curation, processing, and evaluation
• Reinforcement learning and other post-training methodologies for vision-language models
• Computer use, visual agents, and other multi-turn agentic vision tasks
• Architecture, data, and training methodology ablations and improvements
• Performance optimization of our training and data processing stacks

Requirements

• Strong research taste and intuition, with the ability to take ambiguous problems from conception to experimentation and execution
• Strong implementation and prototyping ability; you can turn ideas into experiments quickly
• A high rate of learning and an ability to rapidly become effective in unfamiliar technical areas
• Strong general machine learning intuition and an interest in understanding the full model development stack
• The ability to work well with others in a high-paced research setting
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, and the ability to work effectively across both research and engineering implementation at scale
• Experience working with vision, vision-language, video, or other multimodal models or datasets is highly valuable
• Experience training vision-language models is a plus, but not required
• Experience with large-scale model pretraining, post-training, reinforcement learning, or related methodologies
• Experience sourcing, generating, or curating vision datasets, including synthetic data generation

Familiarity with image processing tools, libraries, or pipelines

• Experience with computer use agents, visual agents, GUI understanding, or other multi-turn multimodal tasks is a plus
• Experience with frontend development, web frameworks, UI/UX implementation, or mobile development is valuable, particularly for computer use and interface-understanding tasks

Experience training models on large-scale, multi-node GPU clusters

• Strong grasp of experimental methodology for running rigorous ablations and hypothesis testing
• Understanding of large-scale, highly parallel data processing pipelines

Proficiency with PyTorch and Python

• Strong ability to dive into large pre-existing codebases and rapidly get up to speed
• Published machine learning research in well-respected venues is a plus

Preferred

• Postgraduate study in a scientific or technical field such as Computer Science, EE/EECS, Mathematics, Physics, or Machine Learning is a plus, but we care more about demonstrated ability and trajectory than credentials

Benefits

• You will have the opportunity to work across the entire model development lifecycle rather than being constrained to a narrow part of the stack
• We move as quickly as we can; we aim to minimize the bar to impact as much as possible
• We all enjoy what we do and love discussing AI
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and FSA plans
• Competitive compensation and 401(k) plan
• Relocation and immigration support on a case-by-case basis
• In-office snacks and meals provided
• Unlimited PTO and company holidays
• In-person team in San Francisco with a collaborative, high-energy environment