Level

Featherless AI

AI Researcher — Training Optimization

Featherless AI is hiring an AI Researcher — Training Optimization for a remote role. Level rates it ; you can apply on Featherless AI.

Level's read on this job

  • Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this role: the job is building AI systems.
  • This is listed as a remote role.
  • The posting mentions PyTorch and AI research among its tools and skills.
  • Featherless AI has 16 other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

pytorch
ai-research

About the Role

We’re looking for an AI Researcher focused on training optimization to help us push the efficiency, stability, and scalability of large-scale model training. You’ll work at the intersection of research and systems, developing novel techniques to reduce training cost, accelerate convergence, and improve model quality—while validating ideas through rigorous experiments and publications.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys turning research insights into practical training wins, and who has a track record (or strong ambition) of publishing applied ML research.

What You’ll Work On

  • Design and evaluate training optimization techniques for large models (e.g. optimization algorithms, schedulers, normalization, curriculum strategies)

  • Improve training efficiency and stability across long runs and large datasets

  • Research and implement methods such as:

    • Optimizer and scheduler innovations

    • Mixed-precision, low-precision, and memory-efficient training

    • Gradient noise reduction, scaling laws, and convergence analysis

    • Training-time regularization and robustness techniques

  • Run large-scale experiments, analyze results, and translate findings into actionable improvements

  • Author or co-author research papers, technical reports, or blog posts

  • Collaborate closely with infrastructure and inference teams to ensure training decisions translate to real-world performance

What We’re Looking For

  • Strong background in machine learning research, with emphasis on training dynamics and optimization

  • Experience training large neural networks (LLMs, multimodal models, or large sequence models)

  • Publication experience in ML venues (e.g. NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, COLM, arXiv) or equivalent high-quality open research

  • Solid understanding of:

    • Optimization theory and practice

    • Backpropagation, gradient flow, and training stability

    • Distributed and large-batch training

  • Proficiency in Python and modern ML frameworks (PyTorch preferred)

  • Ability to independently design experiments and reason from data

Nice to Have

  • Experience with non-standard architectures (e.g. RNN variants, long-context models, hybrid systems)

  • Experience optimizing training on GPUs at scale (FSDP, ZeRO, custom kernels)

  • Contributions to open-source ML or research codebases

  • Comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous startup environments

Why This Role

  • Real influence over core model training decisions

  • Freedom to pursue and publish novel research

  • Direct access to large-scale experiments and real production constraints

  • A small, senior team that values thinking deeply and shipping thoughtfully

How we rate this

AI Researcher — Training Optimization at Featherless AI rates 100 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.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

  1. ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
  2. ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
  3. ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
  4. ●○○○ 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

AI ResearchPyTorch

Questions you could be asked

  1. Tell me about a research question you investigated. What did you find?
  2. Walk me through how you've used PyTorch in your day-to-day work.
  3. How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
  4. 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 and PyTorch. 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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