Prime Intellect

Research Engineer / Scientist - Reinforcement Learning

San Francisco FullTime Remote
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Job Description

OWN YOUR INTELLIGENCE Prime Intellect is building the open superintelligence stack: the infrastructure frontier AI labs build internally, made available to every ambitious AI team. Our platform, Lab, unifies compute, environments, evaluations, secure sandboxes, high-performance training, and deployment into one full-stack system for post-training at frontier scale - from SFT and RL to tool use, agent workflows, and continuously improving production models. We are building open frontier AI: open-source models trained end to end for long-horizon tasks like autonomous research, and the full-stack platform our own research team uses to build them. The next generation of AI companies, enterprises, and research teams do not just need more GPUs. They need the ability to turn their own workflows, tools, data, and feedback loops into superintelligence they own. Prime Intellect has raised $150M in total funding from Founders Fund, Radical Ventures, NVIDIA, and exceptional AI, infrastructure, and enterprise operators — including Andrej Karpathy, Dwarkesh Patel, and leaders and founders from Ramp, Perplexity, Harvey, Mercor, Zapier, Datadog, Cognition, OpenAI, Thinking Machines, Together AI, SemiAnalysis, LangChain, Browserbase, Cloudflare, Sierra, Databricks, Airbnb, OpenRouter, Standard Intelligence, Fleet, Core Auto, and more. We are looking for people who want to build at the intersection of frontier research, real infrastructure, and go-to-market for a category that does not fully exist yet. ROLE IMPACT Help develop the algorithms and systems used to train Prime Intellect’s open models with reinforcement learning. We’re hiring research engineers and scientists across RL algorithms, scaling research, and training frameworks. Your focus will reflect your strengths; you don’t need to cover all three. RESPONSIBILITIES Algorithm research - Develop and test RL methods for reasoning, coding, and long-horizon tasks, including changes to training objectives and policy optimization. - Investigate stability in asynchronous RL, including policy staleness, trainer/sampler mismatch, and numerical differences between training and rollouts. - Work with data and evaluation researchers to understand how task selection, rewards, and training data affect what the model learns. Scaling science - Design experiments to understand how RL performance and learning dynamics change with model size, training compute, and task horizon. - Use controlled ablations and evaluations to distinguish learning gains from reward exploitation, evaluation artifacts, or training bugs. - Turn experimental findings into training recipes, then test whether the improvements hold across larger models and longer runs. RL frameworks - Extend prime-rl https://github.com/PrimeIntellect-ai/prime-rl to support new algorithms, models, and asynchronous training workflows. - Improve the performance and numerical correctness of research runs across trainers, rollout workers, and environments, working with the infrastructure team. - Build diagnostics that make unstable runs and performance regressions easier to reproduce, and help distinguish algorithm problems from implementation or runtime issues. REQUIREMENTS - Demonstrated depth in at least one of RL algorithms, empirical research on model training, or distributed ML systems. This could come through research, open-source contributions, or systems you’ve built. - Strong programming skills in Python and experience with PyTorch or a comparable ML framework. - Ability to design controlled experiments, interpret results, and debug unexpected model or system behavior. - Experience taking a research idea or systems change through implementation, testing, and evaluation, with a clear account of what worked and what didn’t. Nice to have - Experience with distributed training frameworks or asynchronous rollout pipelines. - Experience diagnosing unstable RL runs, including policy-staleness or numerical issues. - Work on coding agents, verifiable rewards, or long-horizon environments. BENEFITS AND PERKS - Cash Compensation Range of $150-350k, including equity incentives, aligning your success with the growth and impact of Prime Intellect. - Flexible work arrangements, with the option to work remotely or in-person at our offices in San Francisco. - Visa sponsorship and relocation assistance for international candidates. - Quarterly team off-sites, hackathons, conferences and learning opportunities. - Opportunity to work with a talented, hard-working and mission-driven team, united by a shared passion for leveraging technology to accelerate science and AI. If you're excited about the opportunity to build the foundation for the future of decentralized AI and create a platform that empowers developers and researchers to push the boundaries of what's possible, we'd love to hear from you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Research Engineer / Scientist - Reinforcement Learning role at Prime Intellect involve?

The Research Engineer / Scientist - Reinforcement Learning position at Prime Intellect in San Francisco is a fulltime role. OWN YOUR INTELLIGENCE Prime Intellect is building the open superintelligence stack: the infrastructure frontier AI labs build internally, made available to every ambitious AI team. Our platform, Lab, unifies compute, environments, evaluations, secure sandboxes, high-performance training, and deployment into one full-stack system for post-training at frontier scale - from SFT and RL to tool use, agent workflows, and continuously improving production models. We are building open frontier AI: open-source models trained end to end for long-horizon tasks like autonomous research, and the full-stack platform our own research team uses to build them. The next generation of AI companies, enterprises, and research teams do not just need more GPUs.

What skills are required for Research Engineer / Scientist - Reinforcement Learning at Prime Intellect?

Key skills for this role include: Python, RDS, Pytorch, Databricks, Langchain, Git, API.

What is the salary for Research Engineer / Scientist - Reinforcement Learning at Prime Intellect?

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 Engineer / Scientist - Reinforcement Learning position at Prime Intellect 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 Engineer / Scientist - Reinforcement Learning at Prime Intellect?

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 Engineer / Scientist - Reinforcement Learning at Prime Intellect is a fulltime engineering position in San Francisco. Key skills include Python, RDS, Pytorch, Databricks, Langchain, Git, 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 5/100 (Fresh) indicates this listing is very likely active and recently refreshed.

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.