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Staff Research Engineer - Frontier AI and Reinforcement Learning - US and Canada

Braintrust BrainTrust ContractCanada $57/hr
Posted Oct 3, 2026 · ✓ Still open — checked 1 hour ago

Quick facts

Pay
$57 / hour
Type
Contract
Location
Canada
Hours
40+ hours / week
Background
PhD
Experience
7+ years
Skills
Python
Platform
BrainTrust — 138 open jobs
Typical pay at BrainTrust
$15–100/hour · median $31 (121 jobs on our site)
Payout
Bank transfer, Wise, Stripe, USDC/USDT (when client pays invoice)
Apply
Free to apply — never pay to get AI training work
  • Rate: $57/hr
  • Hours: 40 hours / week
  • Experience: 5 - 10 years
  • Location: Jersey City, NJ, USA + 1 more

Advance frontier AI through research and engineering across synthetic and agentic data, reinforcement learning, post-training, model understanding, benchmarks and evaluation. You will investigate high-impact questions, build research-grade prototypes and help turn validated findings into scalable AI systems.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Investigate frontier-model capabilities, limitations and training methods, formulate research questions and explore new approaches.

• Build research datasets, experiments, prototypes, tooling and evaluation frameworks. Train, test and evaluate models using modern ML tools.

• Analyze results with scientific rigor, data quality, reproducibility and evidence-based interpretation. Iterate from hypotheses to validated insights.

• Collaborate across Research, Engineering, Product and Operations to translate findings into practical systems.

• Communicate findings through technical reports, publications, open-source work and research forums where appropriate. Contribute through peer review, mentorship and technical leadership.


WHAT YOU WILL BRING


• 7+ years of professional experience with significant research engineering experience in machine learning or frontier AI systems.

• A PhD or master’s degree in AI, machine learning, computer science or a closely related technical field, or exceptional equivalent research experience.

• Strong ML foundations and experience designing experiments, training or evaluating models, or developing AI systems.

• Research experience in at least one of synthetic or agentic data generation, reinforcement learning or post-training, model understanding, AI evaluation, benchmarks, or tool-using AI agents.

• Strong Python programming and experience implementing, testing and iterating with modern ML frameworks and tooling.

• Scientific judgment, rigorous reproducible methods and attention to data quality.

• Strong written and verbal communication, independent work and effective cross-functional collaboration.

• Experience mentoring engineers or researchers and providing technical leadership.


PROJECT DETAILS

Expected project length is three months, with an immediate start. Availability of at least 40 hours per week, 8 hours per day and four hours of daily Pacific Time overlap is required. Selection includes an approximately 20-minute client AI interview and a 45-60-minute technical delivery interview. Include your LinkedIn profile URL in your required resume.


LOCATION AND COMPENSATION

This remote opportunity is open to candidates in the United States and Canada at $57 USD per hour.

Company: Staff Research Engineer - Frontier AI and Reinforcement Learning - US and Canada
Location: Canada
Apply here: https://app.usebraintrust.com/r/eve125/

Braintrust is a talent network that matches freelancers and professionals with companies, including AI labs that need experts for training and evaluation work. Its AI recruiter handles screening.