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Applied Researcher

Compensation
$150,000–$300,000/year

Job Description

Software should be beautiful.

Variant is code generation with creativity and taste. Instead of a confined conversation, you can generate endless designs from a single idea. Freely explore, discover directions you wouldn’t have thought of, and build better software as a result.

We're well-capitalized and looking for an applied researcher to join us at Variant.

Job Responsibilities:

  • Design, train, and evaluate deep neural networks and LLMs
  • Own experiments end-to-end: hypotheses, datasets, metrics, results
  • Prototype fast; turn promising ideas into reliable systems
  • Collaborate with engineering and design to make ideas real
  • Write clearly: papers, docs, and crisp experiment reports
  • Don't compromise between rigor and shipping fast
  • See what needs to be done and do it

Minimal qualifications:

  • 2+ years in PhD program or in industry
  • Experience training deep neural networks
  • Proficiency in frameworks like Pytorch
  • Published 1 or more papers in the subject of deep learning

Ideal qualifications:

  • Experience training LLMs, including SFT, RL-based techniques, etc.
  • Experience in the domain of code generation
  • At least 1 paper accepted into a top conference
  • Proficiency in best software engineering practices
  • Repeated experience formulating, structuring, and answering open ended questions
  • Passionate about visual design or UI design; prior work in the space

We've kept our team small by design. Your code will matter from day one, and its impact will compound over time. This will be the most meaningful work of your career.

We work from a beautiful space in San Francisco where we dream up the future and make it real together. We’re well-capitalized and backed by notable investors.

If you've built things you're proud of, we'd love to see them.

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Job Details

Location
San Francisco, CA, US
Posted
Mar 24, 2026, 04:26 PM
Listed
Mar 24, 2026, 04:26 PM
Compensation
$150,000 - $300,000 per year

About Variant

Part of the growing space & AI ecosystem pushing the frontiers of technology.

Found this role interesting?

Applied Researcher
Variant
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Shipping like we're funded. We're not. No affiliation.

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