Luke Weekes

Founding Member of Technical Staff (Research / Post-Training) Applied AI / RL | San Francisco (onsite) | $200k–$275k 0.25–0.50% equityDeepRec is partnered with a YC-backed (S25), seed-stage applied AI and data company working at the cutting edge of reinforcement learning and agentic systems. They collaborate closely with leading AI labs to train models capable of executing complex, real-world workflows across financial services. Their core platform focuses on building high-quality RL environments that simulate tasks across investment banking, private equity, and hedge funds (e.g. financial modelling, presentations, etc.). Following a recent seed raise, they’re now building out their founding research and engineering team. The Opportunity This is a Founding Member of Technical Staff hire focused on research and post-training. You’ll take ownership of training and evaluating frontier models, shaping external benchmarks, and contributing to the company’s research presence. What You’ll Be DoingTraining open-source / frontier models on proprietary RL environments to validate performance and generate insightsLeading public-facing benchmarks and leaderboard initiatives for frontier modelsPublishing research (blogs, papers) to engage both industry and academic communitiesContributing to core platform work where needed (AI tooling, data pipelines, environment/reward systems)Helping establish engineering and research culture from day oneWhat They’re Looking ForExperience in model post-training (fine-tuning, RLHF, or similar)Track record of publishing research or contributing to open research communitiesFamiliarity with RL, evaluations, or benchmarking for AI agentsStrong startup mindset — high velocity, high ownershipProduct awareness and ability to prioritise across a broad roadmapComfortable engaging with users, customers, and subject matter expertsNice to HavePrevious startup or founding experienceCompensation & Benefits$200k–$275k base 0.25–0.50% equityFully covered healthcare (including dependents)Relocation support401(k)Meals, gym, and transport fully coveredVisa sponsorship availableLocation San Francisco — full-time, onsite

Founding Member of Technical Staff (Platform Engineering) I’m currently partnered with a well-funded, early-stage applied AI company building at the frontier of reinforcement learning and agentic systems for financial services. They’re working closely with leading AI labs to train models capable of performing complex, real-world tasks (think financial modelling, investment workflows, and other high-value knowledge work). The business has recently come out of a top-tier accelerator and raised seed funding, and is now scaling its founding engineering team. The Opportunity They’re looking to bring in Founding Members of Technical Staff to take ownership of platform engineering and play a key role in shaping both the product and engineering culture from day one. What You’ll Be DoingBuilding and scaling RL training inference infrastructure for real-world usageDesigning long-horizon, high-fidelity RL environments to push frontier modelsImproving the speed and quality of environment creation (10–100x focus)Developing synthetic data pipelines to simulate complex financial scenariosCreating analytics tooling across performance, cost, and operational workflowsBuilding domain-specific evaluation systems (e.g. for modelling, presentations, trading)Helping define engineering standards, culture, and ways of workingWhat They’re Looking ForExperience with RL, evaluations, or benchmarking for AI systemsStrong startup mentality — high ownership, fast iteration, low egoProduct-oriented engineers who can prioritise and think commerciallyComfortable engaging with users, customers, and domain expertsNice to HaveResearch background (e.g. training models, published work)Previous startup or founding experiencePackage$150k–$250k base meaningful equity (0.25–0.50%)Strong benefits package (healthcare, meals, gym, transport, etc.)Relocation support visa sponsorship availableLocation San Francisco (5 days onsite)