AI Researcher — AI Architecture Research
Featherless AI is hiring an AI Researcher — AI Architecture Research for a remote role. Level rates it ; you can apply on Featherless AI.
Level's read on this job
- On Level's scale, this role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
- This is listed as a remote role.
- The posting mentions PyTorch, JAX and AI research among its tools and skills.
- Featherless AI has 16 other open roles on Level.
AI in this role
About the Role
We’re looking for an AI Researcher focused on AI architecture research to help design, analyze, and advance next-generation model architectures. You’ll work at the intersection of theory and production—publishing novel research while collaborating closely with engineers to turn ideas into real systems.
This role is ideal for someone who has published research papers and wants to see their work directly shape deployed models, not just benchmarks.
What You’ll Work On
Research and design novel AI architectures (e.g. alternatives to standard Transformer designs, long-context models, efficient sequence modeling, hybrid architectures)
Explore architectural improvements for scalability, efficiency, and stability
Prototype and evaluate new architectures through ablations, benchmarks, and empirical studies
Author and co-author research papers for top ML conferences and journals
Collaborate with engineering teams to translate research into training and inference systems
Stay current with state-of-the-art research and identify promising directions early
What We’re Looking For
Strong background in machine learning research, with a focus on model architecture
Publication record in ML/AI venues (e.g. NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, COLM, ACL, EMNLP, arXiv)
Deep understanding of:
Neural network architectures
Sequence models and attention mechanisms
Training dynamics and optimization
Hands-on experience with PyTorch or JAX
Ability to reason rigorously, design clean experiments, and communicate results clearly
Comfortable working in a fast-moving startup environment
Nice to Have
Experience with non-Transformer architectures (e.g. RNN-based, state-space, hybrid models)
Work on long-context or memory-efficient models
Open-source research contributions
Experience bridging research and production systems
Background in efficient training or inference-aware architecture design
Why Join Us
High ownership over research direction and roadmap
Clear path to publishing impactful work
Tight feedback loop between research and real-world deployment
Small, highly technical team with strong research culture
Competitive compensation and meaningful equity
How we rate this
AI Researcher — AI Architecture Research at Featherless AI rates 98 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a research question you investigated. What did you find?
- Walk me through how you've used PyTorch in your day-to-day work.
- What are the limits of JAX that you've run into, and how did you work around them?
- How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
- Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: AI Research, PyTorch, and JAX. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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