Founding Research Engineer

Founding Research Engineer

Location San Francisco, CA 94107 Date Posted October 16, 2026 Job ID 15743 Employment Type Direct Hire

Scion Technology has been engaged to conduct a search for an experienced Founding Research Engineer for our client, an early-stage AI startup. This is a full time, direct hire opportunity, onsite in San Francisco, CA.

POSITION OVERVIEW

We are seeking a highly motivated Founding Research Engineer to join an early-stage AI startup in San Francisco, working at the forefront of reinforcement learning (RL), model evaluations, and AI post-training. In this role, you will work directly with leading frontier AI labs to develop coding RL tasks, build benchmarks, and evaluate cutting-edge AI models. As an early engineering hire, you'll have significant ownership over technical projects, collaborate closely with the founders, and play a key role in shaping the company's engineering capabilities.

PERKS

• Founding Engineering Opportunity: Join as an early engineering hire with substantial ownership and influence over technical direction.

• Cutting-Edge AI Work: Collaborate directly with frontier AI labs on reinforcement learning, model evaluations, and post-training research.

• Leadership Growth: Opportunity to build and lead an engineering team as the company scales.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design, develop, and implement coding reinforcement learning (RL) evaluations, tasks, and task creation pipelines.
• Build and enhance RealSuite, evaluating frontier AI models against benchmarks and representative coding tasks.
• Collaborate directly with leading frontier AI labs to develop RL tasks tailored to their research and training needs.
• Develop evaluation harnesses, benchmarks, and testing methodologies to assess model performance.
• Work closely with customers to understand technical requirements, ensure quality, and deliver solutions that meet project specifications.
• Combine research-driven experimentation with hands-on engineering to improve evaluation and post-training workflows.
• Take ownership of technical projects from initial research and design through implementation and delivery.
• Contribute to the growth of the engineering organization, with the opportunity to build and lead a team as the company scales.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Strong foundational understanding of reinforcement learning (RL), coding RL, model evaluations, benchmarks, evaluation harnesses, and AI post-training.
• Ability to combine research intuition with hands-on engineering to design, build, and evaluate technical solutions.
• Experience with RL tasks, model evaluations, post-training workflows, or related AI research through professional work, academic research, or independent projects.
• Demonstrated technical initiative through experience at an AI data company, research organization, or self-directed projects involving benchmarks, RL, or post-training experimentation.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to independently navigate complex technical challenges.
• High level of ownership, intellectual curiosity, and motivation to continuously learn and develop new skills.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, early-stage startup environment with evolving priorities and significant individual responsibility.
• High integrity, strong work ethic, and a genuine passion for advancing AI research and engineering.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

This direct hire position offers a salary range of $150-200k, commensurate with experience. They offer a robust benefits package that includes comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, along with additional perks.

ABOUT OUR FIRM

Scion Staffing is a national award-winning staffing firm! Since 2006, we have had the pleasure of successfully placing thousands of talented professionals with amazing career opportunities. Through our innovative team building and recruiting solutions, we bridge the gap in executive leadership searches, direct hire recruiting, interim leadership placement, and temporary professional staffing. We are proud to be part of the Forbes lists of the Best Recruitment Firms and the Best Executive Search Firms in America. Additionally, Scion has been recognized as a ClearlyRated Best of Staffing firm as well as a top recruitment firm by The Business Times. Additional information about our firm can also be found online.

Scion Staffing, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and service provider and does not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, citizenship status, sexual orientation, disability, political affiliation or belief, or any other protected class. We are committed to the principles of Equal Opportunity Employment and are dedicated to making employment decisions based on merit and value, for ourselves, our client companies, and the candidates we represent. For opportunities located in a region that have enacted fair chance, arrest or conviction-based employment ordinances, Scion Staffing proactively follows the enacted guidance and considers for employment all qualified applications with arrest and conviction records. We engage in socially conscious business practices and believe that diverse, inclusive, and non-biased talent and recruitment processes are foundational to the success of Scion as well as every client organization with whom we partner.