Research Engineer -- Vision and Vision-Language Models

The Role: As a 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. 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. You’ll Work Across: End-to-end pretraining and post-training of vision-language modelsLarge-scale vision and multimodal training runsVision and multimodal dataset sourcing, generation, curation, processing, and evaluationReinforcement learning and other post-training methodologies for vision-language modelsComputer use, visual agents, and other multi-turn agentic vision tasksArchitecture, data, and training methodology ablations and improvementsPerformance optimization of our training and data processing stacks What We're Looking For / Requirements: Strong research taste and intuition, with the ability to take ambiguous problems from conception to experimentation and executionStrong implementation and prototyping ability; you can turn ideas into experiments quicklyA high rate of learning and an ability to rapidly become effective in unfamiliar technical areasStrong general machine learning intuition and an interest in understanding the full model development stackThe ability to work well with others in a high-paced research settingExcellent communication and collaboration skills, and the ability to work effectively across both research and engineering implementation at scale Qualifications / Additional Skills: Experience working with vision, vision-language, video, or other multimodal models or datasets is highly valuableExperience training vision-language models is a plus, but not requiredExperience with large-scale model pretraining, post-training, reinforcement learning, or related methodologiesExperience sourcing, generating, or curating vision datasets, including synthetic data generationFamiliarity with image processing tools, libraries, or pipelinesExperience with computer use agents, visual agents, GUI understanding, or other multi-turn multimodal tasks is a plusExperience with frontend development, web frameworks, UI/UX implementation, or mobile development is valuable, particularly for computer use and interface-understanding tasksExperience training models on large-scale, multi-node GPU clustersStrong grasp of experimental methodology for running rigorous ablations and hypothesis testingUnderstanding of large-scale, highly parallel data processing pipelinesProficiency with PyTorch and PythonStrong ability to dive into large pre-existing codebases and rapidly get up to speedPublished machine learning research in well-respected venues is a plusPostgraduate 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 Why Work at Zyphra: Our research methodology is grounded in methodical, step-by-step approaches to ambitious goals. Both deep research and engineering excellence are equally valuedWe strongly value new and crazy ideas and are very willing to bet big on new ideasYou will have the opportunity to work across the entire model development lifecycle rather than being constrained to a narrow part of the stackWe move as quickly as we can; we aim to minimize the bar to impact as much as possibleWe value rate of learning and growth, not just what someone has already doneWe all enjoy what we do and love discussing AI Benefits and Perks: Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and FSA plansCompetitive compensation and 401(k) planRelocation and immigration support on a case-by-case basisIn-office snacks and meals providedUnlimited PTO and company holidaysIn-person team in San Francisco with a collaborative, high-energy environment