Roles at frontier labs · Research specialties
Post-Training Researcher and Engineer
45 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.
Post-training teams turn a pretrained model into the assistant people use: supervised fine-tuning, preference data, RLHF and the evaluations that decide what ships.
- Post-training and fine-tuning 91%
- How language models work 80%
- Reinforcement learning 80%
- Evals and benchmarks 69%
- Production systems 58%
- Agents and tool use 51%
taught here course coming not taught
The numbers
- Recorded postings at 16 labs
- 45
- Median base pay middle half $325k to $440k, 23 U.S. bands
- $413k
- No degree requirement stated 4% require a PhD outright
- 60%
- Years asked, median of the 11 that state a minimum
- 3
The recorded snapshot
Postings from 16 labs
In the labs' own words
In the labs' own words
“Have hands-on experience with LLMs, RL, RLHF/RLAIF, post-training, evals, graders, synthetic data, model training, coding agents, tool-using agents, or production ML systems.”
“Experience with LLMs, post-training, reinforcement learning, or agentic systems .”
“Experience: 5+ years in a technical role, with a strong focus on inference systems, open-source LLM deployment, or post-training workflows.”
Your way in
Three doors to this role
- Door 1
Finishing a degree
29% mention publications
The way in is a program: 32 recorded in the snapshot
- Door 2
A software engineer
60% have no degree requirement stated
What to add
- Door 3
A PhD
51% ask for distributed training
Engineering at scale
Asked often
The short answers
How much does a post-training researcher and engineer at a frontier lab make?
The median U.S. base salary across 23 recorded post-training researcher and engineer postings that publish a band is $413k; the middle half runs from $325k to $440k. Equity and bonus are not included.
Do you need a PhD to be a post-training researcher and engineer?
60% of the 45 recorded postings do not state a degree requirement, 33% mention a PhD or master's, and 4% require a PhD outright.
What skills do post-training researcher and engineer postings ask for?
Most often: post-training and fine-tuning (91%), how language models work (80%), reinforcement learning (80%), evals and benchmarks (69%), production systems (58%).
Which labs posted post-training researcher and engineer roles in this recorded board?
Recorded board: OpenAI (7), Thinking Machines Lab (6), Together AI (6), Google DeepMind (4), Reflection AI (4), Anthropic (3), and 10 more.
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The board
Recorded postings, newest first
The newest 40 of 45. Each title opens the lab's own posting. By family: research scientists and engineers · software engineering at labs · fellowships, residencies and internships · applied ai and forward-deployed
- Research Engineer, Post-Training ↗
Cognition · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required
- AI Research Engineer, Post-Training ↗
Lovable · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Research Engineer, Post-Training Model Evaluations ↗
Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base
- Research Engineer, Production Model Post-Training ↗
Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $500k base
- Research Engineer, Production Model Post-Training ↗
Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Researcher, Post Training ↗
Cartesia · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $180k to $350k base
- Principal Research Engineer, Post-Training ↗
Character.AI · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $275k to $400k base
- Research Engineer, Post-Training (All Industry Levels) ↗
Character.AI · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $225k to $400k base
- Member of Technical Staff, Post-Training ↗
Cohere · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Gemini Post-training Software Engineer, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Software engineering at labs · Bachelor's or equivalent
- Post-training Agentic Research Scientist, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Senior Staff Research Scientist/Engineer, Agentic Post Training, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD preferred
- Staff Research Scientist/Engineer, Agentic Post Training, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD preferred
- Research Engineer / Scientist, Post-training & Reinforcement Learning - London ↗
H Company · Research scientists and engineers · PhD preferred
- Research Engineer / Scientist, Post-training - Paris ↗
H Company · Research scientists and engineers · Master's or PhD required
- Principal Research Engineer, Model Training & Post-Training ↗
Inflection AI · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $400k to $550k base
- Member of Technical Staff - Post Training, Applied ↗
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
- AI Research Scientist, Video Generation and Post Training, FAIR ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Visiting Scholar — Post Training & Research (Discovery AI Lab) ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Fellowships, residencies and internships · PhD required
- Agent Post-Training Research ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Agent Post-Training, Artifacts Research ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Agent Post-Training, Computer Use Research ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Agent Post-Training, Connectors Research ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Agent Post-Training, Context Research ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Agent Post-Training, Frontier Evals and Environments Research ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Research Engineer / Research Scientist- Personal AGI (Post Training) ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Forward Deployed Engineer - LLM Post-training ↗
Reflection AI · Applied AI and forward-deployed · No degree stated
- Forward Deployed Engineer, Lead - LLM Post-training ↗
Reflection AI · Applied AI and forward-deployed · No degree stated
- Member of Technical Staff - Data Quality Engineer (Post-training) ↗
Reflection AI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Member of Technical Staff - Post-Training ↗
Reflection AI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Research Lead, Tinker, Fine-tuning Science ↗
Thinking Machines Lab · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $350k to $475k base
- Research Software Engineer, Post Training ↗
Thinking Machines Lab · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $475k base
- Research, Finetuning Science ↗
Thinking Machines Lab · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $350k to $475k base
- Research, Post-Training ↗
Thinking Machines Lab · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $350k to $475k base
- Research, Post-Training Evals ↗
Thinking Machines Lab · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $350k to $475k base
- Site Reliability Engineer, Post Training ↗
Thinking Machines Lab · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $300k to $350k base
- Forward Deployed Engineer (Inference & Post-Training) ↗
Together AI · Applied AI and forward-deployed · No degree stated · $270k to $300k base
- Forward Deployed Engineer (Inference & Post-Training) - Mandarin Speaking ↗
Together AI · Applied AI and forward-deployed · No degree stated
