Research Engineer, Developer Experience, Tinker

About the role

We’re hiring a research engineer focused on developer experience to build Tinker while using Tinker — working hands-on with real users and turning their challenges into product improvements.

Responsibilities

• Write, test, and maintain high-quality code examples, recipes, and documentation in the Tinker cookbook.
• Work directly with a variety of users to debug technical issues and optimize their fine-tuning pipelines.
• Partner with internal research and infra teams to identify and prioritize improvements to Tinker’s developer experience.
• Build tools, integrations, and demos that reduce user friction and make it easy to experiment and deploy models.
• Share insights from the field through posts, guides, and talks.
• Help develop Tinker’s near-term roadmap and long-term product strategy.

Requirements

• Experienced with fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) with supervised and reinforcement learning, and how to tune the hyperparameters of these algorithms.
• Experienced with developing software libraries, especially open-source libraries.
• Thoughtful about developer experience, with clear ideas around developer ergonomics, onboarding flow, and sharp edges.
• Passionate about engaging with open-source communities, whether by contributing code, answering questions, or sharing learnings.
• Written public or internal code examples, tutorials, or papers that helped others understand and apply technical concepts.
• Comfortable reasoning about model training, fine-tuning, and inference, and can credibly discuss tradeoffs between different approaches.

Qualifications

• Preferred qualifications include:
• Experience with fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) with supervised and reinforcement learning, and how to tune the hyperparameters of these algorithms.
• Experience with developing software libraries, especially open-source libraries.
• Thoughtful about developer experience, with clear ideas around developer ergonomics, onboarding flow, and sharp edges.
• Passionate about engaging with open-source communities, whether by contributing code, answering questions, or sharing learnings.
• Written public or internal code examples, tutorials, or papers that helped others understand and apply technical concepts.
• Comfortable reasoning about model training, fine-tuning, and inference, and can credibly discuss tradeoffs between different approaches.

Skills

• Technical skills in fine-tuning large language models (LLMs).
• Experience with software development and open-source contributions.
• Understanding of developer experience and its importance.
• Ability to engage with and learn from open-source communities.
• Experience writing and sharing technical content.
• Knowledge of model training, fine-tuning, and inference.

Benefits

Thinking Machines offers generous health, dental, and vision benefits, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed.

Pay

Depending on background, skills and experience, the expected annual salary range for this position is $350,000 - $475,000 USD.

Schedule

This role is based in San Francisco, California.