Research Lead, Tinker, Fine-tuning Science

Thinking Machines Lab
San Francisco
Workplace: HybridFull timeUSD 475,000 - 530,000 annuallyFunction: Research & Scientific (R&D)Education: bachelorsSkills: ["Communication","Mentorship","Research rigor","Alignment building","Problem solving"]

Lead the Fine-tuning Science team in advancing frontier customization techniques for Tinker, a post-training engine. Own the research agenda and roadmap to improve fine-tuning and RL quality, efficiency, and reliability, while staying hands-on with LoRA and parameter-efficient fine-tuning. Hire, mentor, and raise experimental rigor, and share progress externally through papers and technical writing.

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Thinking Machines Lab
Thinking Machines Lab
1 day ago

Research Lead, Tinker, Fine-tuning Science

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Last checked: 10 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Lead the Fine-tuning Science team in advancing frontier customization techniques for Tinker, a post-training engine. Own the research agenda and roadmap to improve fine-tuning and RL quality, efficiency, and reliability, while staying hands-on with LoRA and parameter-efficient fine-tuning. Hire, mentor, and raise experimental rigor, and share progress externally through papers and technical writing.
Location: San Francisco
Workplace: Hybrid
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Research & Scientific (R&D)
Seniority: Sr. Manager level

Key Responsibilities

  • •Set and own the research agenda and roadmap for pushing Tinker quality, efficiency, and reliability to the frontier.
  • •Lead and grow the team by hiring, mentoring researchers, and raising the bar for experimental rigor and research taste.
  • •Stay hands-on with LoRA and parameter-efficient fine-tuning, and how they interact with RL and post-training.
  • •Improve stability, efficiency, and reliability of large-scale fine-tuning and RL runs on Tinker.
  • •Represent the work externally through papers, technical blog posts, and community contributions.

Pay and Benefits

Salary: USD 475,000 - 530,000 annually
Perks:Health InsuranceDentalVisionPaid LeaveParental LeaveRelocation

Key Requirements

  • •Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Physics, Mathematics, or a related discipline with strong theoretical and empirical grounding.
  • •A track record of leading research—setting direction for a team or major research effort and delivering on it.
  • •Proficiency in Python and familiarity with deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX), with comfort debugging distributed training and scaling code.
  • •Clarity in communication: explain complex technical concepts in writing and build alignment across science, systems/infra, and product.
  • •Strong interest in the mission to enable custom models.
Education:Bachelor's
Skills:CommunicationMentorshipResearch rigorAlignment buildingProblem solving
Tech Stack:PythonPyTorchTensorFlowJAXLoRARLRLHFRLAIF

Eligibility

Work Authorization:Sponsorship available.

Company Brief

Thinking Machines Lab
Develops enterprise AI solutions, custom large language models, and ML platforms to help organizations deploy intelligent applications. Services include data engineering, model development, and AI consulting for scale and production readiness.
Industry: AI & Machine Learning
Company Size: Medium (51 to 250 employees)
Growth: Growth Stage Startup
Headquarters: Mumbai, India
Website