Founding Member of Technical Staff (Research / Post-Training)
Applied AI / RL | San Francisco (onsite) | $200k–$275k 0.25–0.50% equity

DeepRec 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 Doing
  • Training open-source / frontier models on proprietary RL environments to validate performance and generate insights
  • Leading public-facing benchmarks and leaderboard initiatives for frontier models
  • Publishing research (blogs, papers) to engage both industry and academic communities
  • Contributing to core platform work where needed (AI tooling, data pipelines, environment/reward systems)
  • Helping establish engineering and research culture from day one
What They’re Looking For
  • Experience in model post-training (fine-tuning, RLHF, or similar)
  • Track record of publishing research or contributing to open research communities
  • Familiarity with RL, evaluations, or benchmarking for AI agents
  • Strong startup mindset — high velocity, high ownership
  • Product awareness and ability to prioritise across a broad roadmap
  • Comfortable engaging with users, customers, and subject matter experts
Nice to Have
  • Previous startup or founding experience
Compensation & Benefits
  • $200k–$275k base 0.25–0.50% equity
  • Fully covered healthcare (including dependents)
  • Relocation support
  • 401(k)
  • Meals, gym, and transport fully covered
  • Visa sponsorship available
Location
San Francisco — full-time, onsite