Principal ML Investigator
Cerebras is hiring a Principal ML Investigator in Sunnyvale, United States. Level rates it ; you can apply on Cerebras.
Level's read on this job
- On Level's scale, this role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include OpenAI, Llama and AI research.
- Level classifies it as a lead role.
- Level lists 121 other open roles at Cerebras.
AI in this role
Cerebras Systems builds the world's largest AI chip, 56 times larger than GPUs. This architecture allows Cerebras to deliver industry-leading training and inference speeds; over 10 times faster than GPU-based hyperscale cloud inference services.
This order of magnitude increase in speed is transforming the user experience of AI applications, unlocking real-time iteration and increasing intelligence via additional agentic computation.
Cerebras works with the leading model labs, global enterprises, and cutting-edge AI-native startups. OpenAI recently announced a multi-year partnership with Cerebras, to deploy 750 megawatts of scale, transforming key workloads with ultra high-speed inference.
About The Role
Cerebras is adding an ML team that can focus on a new ML effort that can align with existing teams. We are seeking a principal investigator who will partner with our ML leaders to formulate the new effort and to build up the new team and capabilities. This new team would coordinate with our current ML teams: Field ML, which works directly with customers, Applied ML, which builds new ML capabilities and applications for customers, and Core ML, which adapts ML algorithms to find unique capabilities of Cerebras hardware. The new team could take up the same or complementary responsibilities.
We would like the new team to work on some of the following areas:
Post-training and reinforcement learning: Techniques used to improve model deployment quality through further training, tuning, RL, and focus on particular downstream tasks;
Dataset curation and optimization: Techniques to collect and select high-quality data, which can help models to train or tune more quickly or to higher quality;
LLM Pretraining: Techniques to ensure stability and compute-efficiency while pretraining high quality models. May include training dynamics, parameterizations, numerics, or others;
Sparsity: Techniques to sparsify models or data that improve training time-to-quality, or optimize inference speed or throughput;
Domains: Coding agents, reasoning agents, generative language, image, video.
Principal Investigator Responsibilities
Build up a team capable of industry research and advanced development.
Organize various advanced development topics into cohesive agenda.
Adapt novel algorithms and model architectures to run on the Cerebras platform.
Systematically train, tune, and evaluate models to guide/advise production scenarios.
Collaborate with other teams to co-design next-generation hardware and software architectures.
Collaborate with external partners (customers, academic) to drive insight and credibility.
Skills & Qualifications
PhD in Computer Science or related field.
Strong grasp of ML theory in one or more of the above areas.
Proven experience engineering ML systems for scale or production deployment.
Experience leading a team of researchers or engineers.
Preferred Skills & Qualifications
Track record of patents or publications in top-tier conferences or journals.
Experience with large language models (e.g., GPT family, Llama).
Experience with distributed training concepts and frameworks.
Experience in training speed optimizations, such as model architecture transformations to target hardware, or low-level kernel development (e.g., Triton).
Ability to analytically model or optimize system performance.
Why Join Cerebras
People who are serious about software make their own hardware. At Cerebras, we have built a breakthrough architecture that is unlocking new opportunities for the AI industry. With dozens of model releases and rapid growth, we’ve reached an inflection point in our business. Members of our team tell us there are five main reasons they joined Cerebras:
Build a breakthrough AI platform beyond the constraints of the GPU.
Publish and open source their cutting-edge AI research.
Work on one of the fastest AI supercomputers in the world.
Enjoy job stability with startup vitality.
Our simple, non-corporate work culture that respects individual beliefs.
Find out more about what it's like to work at Cerebras here!
Apply today and become part of the forefront of groundbreaking advancements in AI!
Cerebras Systems is committed to creating an equal and diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate different backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We believe inclusive teams build better products and companies. We try every day to build a work environment that empowers people to do their best work through continuous learning, growth and support of those around them.
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How we rate this
Principal ML Investigator at Cerebras rates 99 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 OpenAI in your day-to-day work.
- What are the limits of Llama 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, OpenAI, and Llama. 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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