AI Researcher

Required Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in applied AI research or ML systems with production impact.
• Strong background in large-scale machine learning, LLMs, or multimodal AI systems.
• Hands-on experience with:
• RAG systems.
• Fine-tuning large language models.
• Reinforcement learning methods (RLHF, DPO, or GRPO-style approaches).
• Experience with VLM.
• Strong understanding of representation learning, embeddings, and joint embedding spaces.
• Experience with speech and audio modeling, including STT, ASR, or audio signal processing.
• Proficiency in Python and modern ML frameworks (PyTorch, Hugging Face ecosystem).
• Experience designing or improving evaluation methodologies for LLMs or agentic systems.
• Experience with agentic AI systems, including reasoning, planning, or tool-use architectures.
• Background in multimodal AI systems (text, audio, vision, or structured logs).
• Experience embedding AI into real-world products (browsers, IDEs, enterprise tools).
• Experience with real-time or streaming AI systems.
• Open-source contributions or publications in top-tier ML/AI conferences.
• Strong ability to define research hypotheses from ambiguous, real-world problems.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills in English.
• You must be a world-class individual contributor to thrive at Toptal. You will not be here just to tell other people what to do.