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Roles at frontier labs · Research

Research Engineer

157 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.

Research engineers build and run the experiments behind a model: training code, data pipelines, evaluations and the infrastructure that lets researchers iterate fast. At most frontier labs it is the main research role for people without a PhD.

What the postings ask for
  1. How language models work 69%
  2. Evals and benchmarks 64%
  3. Reinforcement learning 51%
  4. Python 49%
  5. Post-training and fine-tuning 46%
  6. Agents and tool use 44%

taught here course coming not taught

The numbers

Recorded postings at 28 labs
157
Median base pay middle half $313k to $600k, 69 U.S. bands
$413k
No degree requirement stated 6% require a PhD outright
57%
Years asked, median of the 60 that state a minimum
4
Explore opportunities

The recorded snapshot

Postings from 28 labs

In the labs' own words

In the labs' own words

“Are familiar with large scale language model training, evaluation, and inference pipelines”
Anthropic · Staff Research Engineer, Discovery Team ↗
“Experience with LLM training or post‑training: fine‑tuning, RL, distillation, evaluation, and/or data pipelines.”
Mistral AI · Research Engineer, Forge ↗
“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.”
OpenAI · Research Engineer, Frontier Evals & Environments ↗

Your way in

Three doors to this role

  1. Door 1

    Finishing a degree

    Prof Rod Avatar

    24% mention publications

    The way in is a program: 32 recorded in the snapshot

  2. Door 2

    A software engineer

    Prof Rod Avatar

    57% have no degree requirement stated

    What to add

  3. Door 3

    A PhD

    Prof Rod Avatar

    27% ask for distributed training

    Engineering at scale

Asked often

The short answers

How much does a research engineer at a frontier lab make?

The median U.S. base salary across 69 recorded research engineer postings that publish a band is $413k; the middle half runs from $313k to $600k. Equity and bonus are not included.

Do you need a PhD to be a research engineer?

57% of the 157 recorded postings do not state a degree requirement, 34% mention a PhD or master's, and 6% require a PhD outright.

What skills do research engineer postings ask for?

Most often: how language models work (69%), evals and benchmarks (64%), reinforcement learning (51%), python (49%), post-training and fine-tuning (46%).

Which labs posted research engineer roles in this recorded board?

Recorded board: Anthropic (32), Google DeepMind (24), Mistral AI (14), OpenAI (14), Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) (12), Reflection AI (7), and 22 more.

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The board

Recorded postings, newest first

The newest 40 of 157. Each title opens the lab's own posting. By family: research scientists and engineers

  1. Staff Research Engineer, Multi-Agent Scaling ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  2. Research Engineer - Eval Platform ↗

    Mistral AI · Research scientists and engineers · Master's, PhD or equivalent

  3. Research Engineer, Inference Foundation ↗

    Mistral AI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  4. Research Engineer, Mid-Training ↗

    Cognition · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required

  5. Research Engineer, ML Infrastructure ↗

    Cognition · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required

  6. Research Engineer, Post-Training ↗

    Cognition · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required

  7. Research Engineer ↗

    Factory · Research scientists and engineers · Bachelor's degree

  8. Research Engineer ↗

    Greptile · Research scientists and engineers · PhD preferred · $180k to $280k base

  9. Staff Research Engineer (LLM Pre-Training) ↗

    JetBrains (Junie, Mellum) · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  10. AI Research Engineer, Post-Training ↗

    Lovable · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  11. Research Engineering Lead ↗

    Lovable · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  12. Research Engineer - Provenance (Paris) ↗

    Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  13. Member of Technical Staff- Research Engineer (Harness Engineering and Agentic Orchestration) ↗

    Tessl · Research scientists and engineers · PhD preferred

  14. Research Engineer, Climate Modeling ↗

    Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD preferred · $147k to $220k base

  15. Senior Research Engineer, Olmo + Molmo ↗

    Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $174k to $261k base

  16. [Expression of Interest] Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment - London ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  17. Applied AI, Research Engineer ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $300k to $400k base

  18. ML/Research Engineer, Safeguards ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $500k base

  19. Research Engineer / Performance Engineer, RL Distributed Systems ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  20. Research Engineer / Research Scientist, RL Frontiers ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  21. Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Tokens ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $500k base

  22. Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $500k base

  23. Research Engineer, Chip Design RL (Reinforcement Learning) ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  24. Research Engineer, Code RL (Reinforcement Learning) ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  25. Research Engineer, Computer Use ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  26. Research Engineer, Cybersecurity RL (Reinforcement Learning) ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  27. Research Engineer, Cybersecurity RL (Reinforcement Learning) ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  28. Research Engineer, Discovery ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $850k base

  29. Research Engineer, Interpretability ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $315k to $560k base

  30. Research Engineer, Knowledge Team ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $850k base

  31. Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning) ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  32. Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning) ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  33. Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity) ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  34. Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity) ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  35. Research Engineer, Post-Training Model Evaluations ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $500k to $850k base

  36. Research Engineer, Pretraining ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · Master's or PhD required

  37. Research Engineer, Pretraining Scaling ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $850k base

  38. Research Engineer, Pretraining Scaling - London ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

  39. Research Engineer, Production Model Post-Training ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $500k base

  40. Research Engineer, Production Model Post-Training ↗

    Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated

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