# Research Lead, Tinker, Fine-tuning Science at Thinking Machines

- Company: Thinking Machines
- What the company does: Connectionism: Research Blog by Thinking Machines Lab. Backed by a16z, Accel and GV.
- Company website: https://thinkingmachines.ai/
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Senior
- Location: San Francisco
- Work setup: Remote
- Pay: $350K to $475K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-09-16
- Apply by: 2026-10-31
- Apply: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/thinkingmachines/4e3a366f-eb0f-4ea9-8cf9-9c2f911f279c
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/thinking-machines-research-lead-tinker-fine-tuning-science/

## About the role

At Thinking Machines we build tools that enable people to make AI their own, customizing models to serve their unique needs. This includes the ability to train model weights.

## What they're looking for

- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Physics, Mathematics, or a related discipline with strong theoretical and empirical grounding
- A track record of leading research – setting direction for a team or a major research effort and delivering on it
- Proficiency in Python and familiarity with deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX). Comfort debugging distributed training and writing code that scales
- Clarity in communication: an ability to explain complex technical concepts in writing and to build alignment across science, systems/infra, product
- Strong interest in our mission to enable custom models
- Preferred qualifications — we encourage you to apply if you meet some but not all of these:

Tags: Research