Periodic Labs

Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Midtraining

Menlo Park, CA FullTime Remote
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Job Description

We're an AI and physical sciences company building state-of-the-art models to accelerate breakthroughs across materials, energy, and beyond. Backed by world-class investors and growing rapidly, we operate at the pace the frontier requires. Our team brings deep expertise, genuine ownership, and a drive to push the boundaries of what's scientifically possible. ABOUT THE ROLE We're training frontier models to develop deep scientific knowledge and reasoning for scientific discovery. As a Midtraining Research Engineer, you'll take base models and improve their scientific reasoning: curating and generating data, building evals, and running large-scale training experiments. Your work will also lay the groundwork for our pre-training efforts down the line. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Identify, process, and curate novel sources of scientific data for large-scale model training. - Generate high-quality synthetic data to fill gaps in scientific knowledge and reasoning. - Build evaluations that correlate with downstream scientific task performance, working closely with RL researchers, physicists, and chemists. - Develop and apply techniques such as self-distillation and on-policy distillation to improve model capability. - Design and run large-scale training experiments, partnering with supercompute engineers to scale efficiently across thousands of GPUs. - Build tools for yourself and the team to investigate how data choices shape model intelligence. YOU WILL THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU HAVE - Experience training LLMs on curated mixes of trillions of tokens. - Experience on a dedicated evals team supporting a large production training run. - Hands-on use of self-distillation, on-policy distillation, or similar methods in a real training pipeline. - Experience with scaling laws and compute-optimal hyperparameters. - Comfort working across data, evals, and training infrastructure. ESPECIALLY STRONG CANDIDATES MAY ALSO HAVE - Experience optimizing throughput and reliability for large-scale distributed training runs. - A background in AI for science or training on specialized domain data (e.g., protein, materials, or other scientific datasets). - Experience creating evals or synthetic data for non verifiable tasks and tracking performance over live runs. MECHANICS - Minimum education: Bachelor's degree or similar experience - Location: Menlo Park, CA - Compensation: $250,000–$350,000 + equity - Visa sponsorship: Yes, we sponsor visas and will do everything we can to assist in this process.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Midtraining role at Periodic Labs involve?

The Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Midtraining position at Periodic Labs in Menlo Park, CA is a fulltime role. We're an AI and physical sciences company building state-of-the-art models to accelerate breakthroughs across materials, energy, and beyond. Backed by world-class investors and growing rapidly, we operate at the pace the frontier requires. Our team brings deep expertise, genuine ownership, and a drive to push the boundaries of what's scientifically possible. ABOUT THE ROLE We're training frontier models to develop deep scientific knowledge and reasoning for scientific discovery. As a Midtraining Research Engineer, you'll take base models and improve their scientific reasoning: curating and generating data, building evals, and running large-scale training experiments. Your work will also lay the groundwork for our pre-training efforts down the line.

What skills are required for Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Midtraining at Periodic Labs?

Key skills for this role include: AWS, LLM, API.

What is the salary for Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Midtraining at Periodic Labs?

The salary for this position is not publicly listed. You can negotiate during the interview process. Check Glassdoor or Levels.fyi for estimates.

Is the Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Midtraining position at Periodic Labs remote or on-site?

This position is Remote. You can work from anywhere, subject to the employer's remote work policy.

How do I apply for Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Midtraining at Periodic Labs?

You can apply for this position directly through the employer's careers page. Click the 'Apply Now' button on this page to be redirected to the original listing. Make sure your resume is ATS-optimized. Use SpotChange's free ATS test to check.

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About This Role

Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Midtraining at Periodic Labs is a fulltime engineering position in Menlo Park, CA. Key skills include AWS, LLM, API. Education: Master's Degree preferred. Experience: 3+ years.

This role is classified as remote and is suitable for mid level-level professionals. Ghost Score 25/100 (Probably Active) indicates this listing is probably active with recent employer engagement.

To apply, visit the official application page through the Apply Now button above. SpotChange Jobs provides AI-powered career tools including resume optimization, ATS testing, interview preparation, and salary negotiation assistance.