Roles at frontier labs · Research specialties
Multimodal Researcher and Engineer
44 recorded postings · Partial update · October 8, 2026
Recorded postings, not a live vacancy count. Partial update: some sources retain earlier observations; each listing has its own check date.
Multimodal teams build models that see, hear and speak: vision, audio, speech and video, alone or combined with text.
- Multimodal models 98%
- Evals and benchmarks 64%
- How language models work 55%
- Publications 52%
- Python 48%
- PyTorch 45%
taught here course coming not taught
The numbers
- Recorded postings at 12 labs
- 44
- Median base pay middle half $275k to $413k, 17 U.S. bands
- $310k
- No degree requirement stated 14% require a PhD outright
- 52%
- Years asked, median of the 16 that state a minimum
- 5
The recorded snapshot
Postings from 12 labs
In the labs' own words
In the labs' own words
“Familiarity with or strong interest in multimodal AI, including speech technologies, real-time systems, and image generation.”
“Takes ownership: Owns customer post-training projects end-to-end for audio workloads, from requirements through delivery and evaluation.”
“Hands-on experience with multimodal pre-training, post-training, or fine-tuning (vision, audio, video, or cross-modal).”
Your way in
Three doors to this role
- Door 1
Finishing a degree
52% mention publications
The way in is a program: 32 recorded in the snapshot
- Door 2
A software engineer
52% have no degree requirement stated
What to add
- Door 3
A PhD
20% ask for distributed training
Engineering at scale
Asked often
The short answers
How much does a multimodal researcher and engineer at a frontier lab make?
The median U.S. base salary across 17 recorded multimodal researcher and engineer postings that publish a band is $310k; the middle half runs from $275k to $413k. Equity and bonus are not included.
Do you need a PhD to be a multimodal researcher and engineer?
52% of the 44 recorded postings do not state a degree requirement, 39% mention a PhD or master's, and 14% require a PhD outright.
What skills do multimodal researcher and engineer postings ask for?
Most often: multimodal models (98%), evals and benchmarks (64%), how language models work (55%), publications (52%), python (48%).
Which labs posted multimodal researcher and engineer roles in this recorded board?
Recorded board: Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) (14), OpenAI (8), Liquid AI (5), Google DeepMind (3), xAI (3), Cohere (2), and 6 more.
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The board
Recorded postings, newest first
The newest 40 of 44. Each title opens the lab's own posting. By family: research scientists and engineers · ml systems and infrastructure · machine learning engineers · software engineering at labs
- Applied Researcher, Audio ↗
Cartesia · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $200k to $350k base
- Audio Inference Engineer, Model Efficiency ↗
Cohere · ML systems and infrastructure · No degree stated
- Senior Member of Technical Staff, Multimodal AI ↗
Cohere · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Research Engineer, World Models, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD preferred
- Research Scientist, Gemini Vision, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Research Scientist, Multilingual, Multicultural and Multimodal LLM, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Principal Research & Engineering, Realtime Voice AI ↗
Inflection AI · Machine learning engineers · Bachelor's or equivalent · $400k to $550k base
- Member of Technical Staff - Applied ML, Japanese Multimodal ↗
Liquid AI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Member of Technical Staff - ML Scientist, Japanese Multimodal ↗
Liquid AI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Member of Technical Staff - Multi-Modal, Audio ↗
Liquid AI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Member of Technical Staff - Post Training, Applied (Audio) ↗
Liquid AI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Member of Technical Staff - Post Training, Applied (Vision) ↗
Liquid AI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Research Scientist - World Model ↗
Luma AI · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- AI Research Scientist, Computer Vision ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- AI Research Scientist, Video Generation and Post Training, FAIR ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- AI Research Scientist, VLM (vision language models) ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required
- Audio Software Engineer, Applied Scientist ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Computer Vision Engineer, Reality Labs ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Software engineering at labs · PhD required
- Computer Vision Engineer, Reality Labs ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Software engineering at labs · Master's or PhD required
- Research Scientist – World Models, Robotics & Embodied AI ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Research Scientist, Computer Vision MGenAI ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required
- Research Scientist, Contextual AI and Multimodal Agents ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required
- Research Scientist, Multi-Modal Human Understanding ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · Bachelor's or equivalent
- Research Scientist, Multi-Modal Understanding & Synthesis ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required
- Research Scientist, World Modeling ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required
- Software Engineer, Audio SWE ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated
- Vision Architect, RL Silicon ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated
- Android Engineer, ChatGPT ImageGen ↗
OpenAI · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $185k to $385k base
- Backend Software Engineer, ChatGPT ImageGen ↗
OpenAI · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $185k to $305k base
- Engineering Manager, Multimodal (API) ↗
OpenAI · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $401k to $445k base
- Full Stack Software Engineer, ChatGPT ImageGen ↗
OpenAI · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $347k to $445k base
- IT Audiovisual Operations Engineer ↗
OpenAI · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $187k to $207k base
- Machine Learning Engineer, Multimodal Perception and Authentication ↗
OpenAI · Machine learning engineers · No degree stated · $342k to $399k base
- Researcher, Multimodal Safety ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Software Engineer, API Multimodal ↗
OpenAI · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $266k to $445k base
- Product Design Engineer - Audio ↗
Stability AI · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated
- Senior Product Engineer, Growth & Lifecycle Infrastructure - Music & Audio ↗
Stability AI · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated
- Research, Audio Expertise ↗
Thinking Machines Lab · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $350k to $475k base
- Research, Vision Expertise ↗
Thinking Machines Lab · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $350k to $475k base
- Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Voice AI ↗
Together AI · Machine learning engineers · Bachelor's or equivalent · $200k to $260k base
