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 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

What We're Looking For / 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

Qualifications / Additional Skills

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

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

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 valued

We strongly value new and crazy ideas and are very willing to bet big on new ideas

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 value rate of learning and growth, not just what someone has already done

We all enjoy what we do and love discussing AI

Benefits and Perks

Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and FSA plans

Competitive compensation and 401(k) plan